The Age of Inertia
by Seven Perseids
Summary: "You're a pretty, innocent-looking young witch. You could get away with anything." As an obituary writer and spy for the Order of the Phoenix, Lily looks to her past to keep the part about innocence at least partly true. LE/JP, set in 1979.
1. Prologue

**The Age of Inertia: Prologue**

_Eternity of Youth_

I wonder, from time to time, what the world must look like to a dying person. We've all heard stories of a blinding white light, the flip-book of memories racing before our eyes, maybe the odd supernova of colors here or there. As for me, I've never died; I couldn't advise you on which of these I would even claim to see. It's all very much a thought-experiment to me, a dark pool I dip my toes in mainly because I am not sure if it will ripple - or if it is worth wondering whether it will.

For my thought-experiment, I imagine that time is no longer sequential to a man or woman lying on his or her deathbed.

Entertain this example:

Police are sealing shut a dark body bag. The street is closed off with orange and white barricades; a neon-clad deputy is redirecting traffic from his post thirty feet down the block. The road, recently paved with fresh tar, is still pitch black; the outline of the victim's body has been chalked onto the pavement in white. Two gloved workers examine the murder sit and a blood smear expert kneels by the sidewalk, photographing the fine red spray that's colored up the concrete. Like common cargo, the body is slammed into the boot of a van and driven away.

All of this happens as a function of time; linear, always moving forward. But to the dead man, time spun off its track the second the bullet struck; the two minutes it took him to die were spent remembering his regrets. Even after all these years, he recalls that he never took action when the schoolyard bully called his sister names, so he apologizes to her as his heart beats out its dying rhythm. He sees his sister's face and remembers the time she cleaned out the bicycle wound he'd won from speeding down a hillside without having bothered beforehand to put on a set of kneepads. Although he has never been religious, his last thought is of the Rosary.

Or even this one:

An old woman is lying in a hospital bed, and her family finally decides to turn off her ventilator. Foggily, in a dream, she thinks she's nine years old, fishing in a creek with her brother or father or friend, her lungs hooked to a pump siphoning each breath backward, forward, and backward again with the strangest current she's ever seen in water. She is vaguely aware of the pressure of her daughter's fingers and tries to squeeze back, feeling her frailness as a memory of her fatigue after delivering that baby girl fifty years before. She dies quietly and without pain.

Rendered artistically, I suppose some deaths might look like this:

The sun is setting, and the dying person is suspended in midair over an ocean. Thrusting high above the sixty-feet waves is a one-thousand-foot cliff. Each passing instant is characterized by one of those waves moving smoothly over the shore and crashing into the side of the cliff in an explosion of spray. Each drop of water is a prism, one possible lens through which this person might be viewing his or her past. The light refracts as it hits the drops and splits into red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, and violet, each color illuminating one more facet of the truth of the dying person's life.

Somewhere else on Earth, a child sees that rainbow, reaches up, and tries to touch it. He isn't sure what he expects a rainbow to feel like, but he discovers it's just air and a spray of water, perhaps raindrops. He can't hold it, not really, so he wonders why it is that he can see it. He only knows that it stirs something inside him; but that if he tilts his head a certain way, it disappears.

x.x.x.x.x.x

My grandparents had an oceanfront cottage on the northern Atlantic coast. Petunia and I often spent weeks of our summers there when we were young, building sandcastles, bodysurfing, or hunting for seashells. We would play with the other children who frequented that stretch of the beach—a pair of stocky, freckled twins named Edwin and Noah, and a small Asian girl named Penny who didn't speak much English. The two boys liked to roughhouse with me, though Penny preferred to follow Petunia around the vicinity with a pail and shovel to dig for shells. This being the case, I almost invariably found myself being dragged into the water—careening headfirst, rather—and had to thrash my way back to the surface while the twins splashed and wrestled to the chorus of Penny and Petunia squealing each time the water struck their legs.

Once, though, when we were six years old, the boys decided to pass the time by throwing rocks into the surf. Naturally this resulted in a rock-throwing contest, with me as the smallest and most ridiculous of the three contestants. Edwin, the twin with the longer range, tried to show me how to hold the rocks before letting go.

"Like this, see," he said impatiently, putting an oval-shaped piece of granite into my hand. "No, don't put _all_ your fingers on it. Just two."

"But then it falls out unless I hold it really tight."

"You have to throw it before it falls out, stupid."

I scowled and pitched the rock as hard as I could. It flew roughly five feet and plunked into the water with a small splash.

"No, not like _that."_

"You're making me mess up."

"Am not."

"Yes you are. Bugger." I snatched another slab of rock out of the surf and threw this one as well, this time flinging it off to the side. It skipped twice before disappearing under the surface.

Just then Petunia approached us, incongruously tall and lanky in her nine years, the sand and briny spray making long blond ropes of her hair. "Lily. How did you do that?"

Faintly awed and bemused by what I had accomplished, I shrugged and said, "I just did."

"You still throw like a girl," Edwin scoffed.

That evening, after the other children had gone, Petunia and I stood alone on the beach, she watching me with her arms crossed and her pail dangling from her fingers, and I trying to re-create the incident that had occurred in the afternoon.

"I bet that skip was a freak accident," Petunia said in bored tones as I tried in vain to get a piece of round stone to skim the surface of the waves again. "You do have a lot of those."

I glared at her and flung another rock into the water. "I do not." _Plunk_. There it went.

"Give it up, Lily."

"No."

"You're just being dumb."

"You're just being _mean."_ This time, I picked up a disc-shaped stone and tried flicking my wrist as I threw it; I gasped when it struck the water, bounced, and flew into the next rolling wave. "Look! I told you."

Petunia rolled her eyes. "That one only skipped because it was flat."

"So?"

"So you can't skip _every_ rock," she said, sticking her nose in the air.

"I dare you to try it. I bet you can't."

This time she glared at me. "Just watch me."

I put my fists on my hips. "Then go ahead."

Petunia stared at me for a moment, then hesitantly waded another few feet into the surf. She made a face as the sandy water hit her legs and splashed her thighs, holding her pail high above her head as she bent down to fish a rock out of the mud. She recoiled as the water soaked her hair and stained her swimsuit. Finally she straightened up, scowling and holding a flat piece of stone between the tips of her fingers.

"Let's have a contest," she said. "You find one too and throw yours first, and then I'll throw mine."

"I'm not going to let you copy me."

"I am _not_ going to copy you, you little brat," Petunia said, flushing.

"Ehh, you're the one who's acting like a brat," I scoffed, kicking water in her face. She gasped and wiped it out of her eyes with her wrist, spitting.

"Lily _Evans!_ Stop that!"

"What're you going to do, tell on me?"

"Yes!"

I rolled my eyes and folded my arms. "Oh, I'm _so_ scared."

Red-cheeked and angry, Petunia hurled her rock as far as she could, at which it struck the surf with an insolent splash. Then she turned, slapped some water in my direction, and flounced back up to our grandparents' cottage, her pail swinging at her elbow. Her feet left muddy tracks in the sand.

x.x.x.x.x.x

There were times during our childhood where Petunia and I got along quite well. My bouts of accidental magic had a tendency to get me in trouble, and these were the times when Petunia shone like the big sister she had always wanted to be. I was the hapless little sister who made worms leap out of the ground and flatten themselves over my classmates' faces, and she was the protective older sister who explained everything away with an "Oh, shove it, Lily's just quicker than you, now get out of my way before I tell the Headmaster on you," and march me off to a wash room to tut-tut at me as she scrubbed dirt off my fingers. Naturally I protested and argued when she did this, but privately I was grateful. Petunia had a way of making other children feel stupid for looking at me as though I were a freak, and because she did so, I knew she loved me, in her bitter, insecure way. And for that I loved her back.

But then, of course, there was the day I received the letter from Hogwarts. I had no trouble believing it; I hardly questioned the contents of that letter until both my parents had read it. You're a witch, the handwriting in green ink said, and you've been enrolled in a school where you'll learn all number of spells. You'll learn to hold a wand and levitate lead; you'll learn to transfigure matter and heal wounds without bandages. You'll learn to defend yourself with magic.

"You'll learn how to make cards disappear and pull rabbits out of hats, more like," Petunia snarled, snatching the letter and whisking it out of reach when I lunged for it. "What a load of tripe. What a load of _crap_. What are you going to do with magic? Bewitch my wardrobe so that it flies out at me every time I open my chest of drawers and—"

"Give me the letter back, you bloody—"

She was laughing now, a bitter, high-pitched screech. _"'Talented young witches and wizards!'"_ she repeated, cackling. "What a joke! Lily, my _dear_, you don't _really_ believe this is true, do you? So _brilliant_ and you still fall for this! Hark, magic really _does_ exist!"

_"Petunia._ Give me my letter!" I was chasing her around the room now, stumbling over furniture as she darted out of my reach, holding the letter over her head.

"Oh, look, Lily wants it back. She thinks it's a magical passport to fairyland! What, Lily, you don't _actually _believe this, do you? Come on, you're my little sister, you can't possibly be that stupid-"

"Give it BACK!" I tackled her to the floor and tried to pin her arms down so I could pry the letter out of her fist. She was still laughing, her face red, blond hair all over the place, ropy muscles standing out on her bony arms as she attempted to wrestle me off of her. "What the hell is wrong with you!_" _I yelled.

"Ah-ah-ah, none of that, Lily! Mummy'll be angry!"

"Petunia, God, what's got into you! Give it _back, _what is _wrong _with you-"

Petunia kept laughing, gasping now, her face growing redder by the moment. She was out of breath; and never one to miss an opportunity when I saw one, I shoved my knee against her chest and snatched the letter out of her hand. Just as she began to thrash and lunge for the parchment again, our father burst into the room, shouting.

_"Girls!"_ In a moment he had yanked me off Petunia's chest and pulled her up off the floor. "Stop that this _instant!_ Lily, what do you mean by _pinning your sister against the floor?_ And Petunia, _what _the blazes did you think you were _doing?"_

"I got a letter," I explained furiously, breathing hard, "and she thinks she can just _steal_ it, _as if_ that's going to stop me from going. I just got enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm a witch, Dad. And if you don't believe it, read that letter. It'll tell you everything you want to know."

"She's got that right," Petunia cackled. "Burn her at the stake, that's what I say. I always knew she was a freak!"

Our father grabbed her by the shoulders and gripped her, hard. "Stop it. _Now_. Do you hear me?"

She was shaking with laughter, so badly that she didn't appear able to breathe. She nodded almost imperceptibly and kept laughing. When our father let her go, she collapsed against the wall, gasping.

"You are fourteen years old, Petunia, and you're acting like a child. You should know better than to pick fights with your sister over a letter. Apart from being completely immature, this is—"

"Hah. Immature! I have my _reasons."_

"Would you care to share any of them?"

She lifted her chin and gave a proud, saccharine smile, but she was visibly livid and there were tears forming in her eyes. There was a small tremor in her voice when she spoke. "No, I would not like to share them at _all,_ thank you very much."

"Then you'll put your reasons away and never act on them again, or I swear you won't see the light of day for the rest of the time you're living under this roof. Now _you,"_ he said, rounding on me, _"you _are not to attack Petunia under any circumstances, no matter how infuriating you find her. She is your _sister_, and it is your responsibility to treat her in kind."

"I hate her," I said, my throat tight. "And she isn't my sister. I don't know what you think she is, but if she can say that _shit _about me, I am _not_ related to her."

"You are related to her whether you like it or not, young lady. Now tell your sister you're sorry."

"What!"

"I'm waiting, Lily."

I stared at him, open-mouthed, unable to believe the punishment he was demanding I inflict upon myself.

"I'll wait all night if you make me, but you'll regret it if you do."

I waited a moment longer to see if he would stand his ground. When I saw his face harden, I rounded on my sister and thrust out my hand. "Petunia, I apologize for retaliating. I should've known better than to fight with you, because you were _obviously_ going to give the letter back on your own. I'm sorry you've always secretly hated me for being what you aren't. I'm sorry I'm not just your stupid little sister." With that I wrenched my hand out of hers, stuffed the letter in my pocket, and stormed out of the room, eyes blurry with tears.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I was always getting into fights, of course; not by intention, but often because I simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was one incident at Hogwarts where I tripped on my way from the dormitories to the common room; my books went flying, my uniform ripped, and I went crashing down the stairs, only to barrel straight into James Potter and Remus Lupin as they dodged into the stairwell with the apparent intention of avoiding a flying seat cushion. The three of us landed in a heap at the bottom of the staircase, yelling and swearing. We were thirteen years old.

"Oy! What the—watch the hell where you're _going_, Evans!"

Coughing, I shoved James away and scrambled to my knees, groping on the floor for my wand. "Excuse me? Who's in the bloody girls' stairwell when they're forbidden to be there? Eh?"

"Excuse me while I knock your block off," James said, putting on a high voice. "Hang on, let me snap my brassiere in your face—"

"POTTER! You little _berk_—HEY! My _WAND!"_

"AAAGH! YOU HAVE VIOLENT TENDENCIES, EVANS! Wait, are you grabbing my _zipper?_ Hey! Hey, Evans is trying to strip me, ha ha—"

"I think it's more like she's trying to kill you, James, I'd quit trying to cop a feel if I were you—"

"I'm not trying to kill him, I'm just trying to get my wand back, JESUS, Potter, will you _give me_ the stupid thing so I can HEX the crap out of you—"

"Ha, you would, wouldn't you—whoa, whoa! Bitch slap, bitch slap, watch the face! OW, your nails SCRATCH! THE GLASSES, Evans, have some respect for the GLASSES!"

"Hark, I hear the voice of an idiot! HA. Die." I snatched my wand, clambered to my feet, and yanked a loose shoelace out from under James's stomach as he felt blindly under the couch for his glasses. Ten seconds later, I stomped out of the common room to study in the library, so that, perhaps, he'd stumble by a bit later and see that I'd proven my point.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Then, later on, there were the times when it wouldn't stop raining.

When I was fourteen, I would sit by the window, watching the drops trickle or, as the case often was, stream down the glass. Floodwater would fill the streets outside our house and shallow whirlpools would form around the drainage grates. I tried my hand at writing poetry but gave up when the words began to look frivolous and vain. That year, I developed a venomous hatred for my own penmanship and vowed never to write poetry again.

When I was fifteen, Alice and I got caught outside the castle in a thunderstorm. I had just broken up with my first significant other—a Ravenclaw boy with few romantic sensibilities—and had thrown off my raincoat, yanked the rubber band out of my hair, and stomped one sneakered foot into the deepest mud puddle I could find. My white blouse was drenched to transparency, my skirt was clinging to my thighs like plastic wrap, and the red and gold tie I had placed around my neck was coming undone.

"You know, this is probably going to sound crass," Alice mused later as we ran up the steps to the Entrance Hall, "but you two were more like a pair of eight-year-olds trying to figure out how to hold hands than an actual, you know, couple anyway...at any rate, please tell me you'll wear a different set of underthings when you get your first _real_ date."

x.x.x.x.x.x

When I was sixteen, I began to study the rain. It seemed that I could never get out of it, so I would go to the library every once in a while and take out a book on weather patterns. I would then spend my spare time flopped on my bed with them, reading about the formation of hurricanes, tornadoes, and anvil clouds. I began to analyze weather dynamics and tried to predict whether we would receive rain, sleet, hail, or snow. When my roommates began to stare and ask questions, I simply told them, "I like it when it rains."

After James and I became a couple, we made it a point to sneak out of the castle whenever it was raining. He had a penchant for sucking the water off my lips when we kissed, and so the more torrential the downpour, the better he liked it.

Once we found ourselves outside in the rain and lightning. We hadn't realized how close the storm was until a resounding crash shook the wall against which I was leaning.

"Wow, shit," I remarked.

James laughed and began unfastening the buttons of my blouse. "I love how we're just standing here, waiting to be struck by lightning."

I felt his lips at the base of my throat and moaned as he worked his way down. His hair was soaked and black as coal between my fingers. "Yes, you do, don't you?"

x.x.x.x.x.x

One thing that's particularly interesting about memory is that it can be almost absolutely subjective. If you are at all confused over your past, memory bends to your every mood; what seems like a good memory one day can be an embarrassing, cringe-worthy memory the next. For example:

It's sunny outside and I'm sprawled on the grass reading a book. Some young children are playing on the swing set twenty or thirty feet from where I'm lying, the same swing set I played on with Severus Snape when I was ten. The children are shrieking with laughter, one of them throwing himself as high up in the air as he can go before letting go of the swing and flying into the sandbox before them. I remember the look on Snape's face when I did the same and think, _You know, he wasn't so bad. _

Then a cloud moves over the sun and the sky becomes subdued. Now I remember the hollowness of Snape's cheeks, the sunken shape of his eyes. His smile was a tight, thin puzzle I could not solve - and then, when we were older, one I flat-out refused to solve. I wanted nothing from Severus Snape, and so I had nothing to give; whether he liked it or not, that would have to be enough. I remember him and I feel sick.

A better example of subjective memory, though, is this:

Alice's parents had just been murdered, and we were standing before their open caskets. Her mother's eyes were shut, and her hands were folded quietly on her stomach. She wore a black dress with a white lily pinned to the breast; her hair was wavy and golden. Alice's father was wearing black as well, and his hands, too, were folded quietly on his stomach. Death exaggerated the broadness of his shoulders, threw the scars on his face into sharp and ethereal respite. And there they were, mother and father: elegantly, artistically, and irretrievably dead.

It was I who wrote and delivered the eulogy. For some reason she'd never fully explained to me, Alice had wanted me to be the one who did it, so I complied with as much dignity and composure as I could summon. I did well for a seventeen-year-old girl - but I was exactly that; a seventeen-year-old girl, fresh-faced and still young enough to think that losing my virginity made me adult enough to comprehend the weight of the speech I was delivering.

Sometimes I can see myself standing at that podium again, dressed in black, hands trembling; my eyes are dry, and my voice is controlled and even. I'm giving the classic eulogy - fond memories and profound sentiments with moral undertones. I've expressed the thoughts of the funeral congregation, and I'm providing a lead-in for their prayers.

Other times, though, I look back on that and see myself standing at the podium, feeling sick to my stomach. I'm nervous and inhibited and don't feel like I deserve to be up there. Alice is looking up at me as if she can't see me anymore, and she's leaning back against the pew with her hands folded tightly in her lap. Her eyes are red and her corsage is drooping. And although she never says it, I can tell that she's asking me, silently, why I can't sound a little more sincere.

Why can't I, indeed? I'm seventeen. My family is still alive. I can't possibly grasp her pain. What stupidity moved her to think I could?

She thanks me after the funeral and tells me she's sorry for putting me on the spot.

"No, really, you didn't screw it up," she says, swirling her drink as we sit at the bar after the reception. She's staring at the ice as it clinks against the sides of her glass. "I just...I don't know what I was thinking. You told me you didn't want to do it, and I still...God. It's my fault, Lily. Don't beat yourself up."

But the catch is that I'm not really sure if she was disappointed at all; perhaps I merely think she was disappointed because I'm projecting my insecurity onto her. The day was such a whirlwind that all I remember with any real clarity is a myriad of images and emotions—faces, strange voices, shadows, black robes and dresses, smeared red lipstick and women crying in the lavatory while cheap, pearly hand soap dripped from the dispensers. The scenarios I recollect for myself at any given time are entirely dependent on the lens through which I choose to view the event. I can make the memories brave, pensive, sad, perfectly ludicrous, or some bitter and satirical combination of the four.

It's funny, this art of self-delusion. You would think it'd make you feel empowered, but in fact it makes you feel just the opposite: just a little too susceptible to lies, just a little too vulnerable to emotion, just a little too human for your own liking.

But then, who am I to be a judge of such things?

Who am I to be a judge of such things, indeed?

x.x.x.x.x.x

Before my grandfather died, he would let me sit with him on his back porch in the evenings, the two of us listening to the ever-present crash and sigh of the waves along the shore. Often he would while away the entire night whittling small wooden figurines with a Swiss Army knife, a lantern perched beside him on the wooden steps.

"How do you define wisdom?" I asked during the summer after my sixteenth birthday. "It seems like it should be pretty simple, but all I ever hear nowadays is this debate over who's wise enough to lead mankind to its inevitable suicide."

He chuckled. "Ah, Lily," he said, carving the dorsal fin of a driftwood dolphin, "Astute as always." He shaved a few flakes of wood off the dolphin's back. "I learned a thing or two while I was in the Navy—always keep track of your socks, for one," he said with a dry laugh. "But if there was one thing that struck me, it was that life was cheap. Yet...cheap as it was, we all clung to it in our own ways, as if by revolting against what every day in combat reminded us of, we could take back the value of our lives. Human nature, to be sure. Testament to the idea that the appearance of things depends on the how we choose to think about them. It's easy to lose sight of our convictions when we're under fire. Wisdom is the ability to see things with clarity and keep your balance."

I groaned. "Does everyone over the age of sixty talk in generalities like that?"

"Ah, now that I couldn't tell you, but I _can_ assure you that a bloody load of them will talk your ear off if you give them a chance." There was an amused twinkle in his eye. "From what I understand, most young people find this brand of specificity tiresome."

Later, after the sun had set and my grandfather had retired for the night, I walked down to the surf and fished blindly for rocks to skip. From what I remember, I found two or three of a suitable shape. Whether they actually skipped or not, I don't know; but I like to think they did.

Wisdom.

How easy it is to throw that word like a wrench into the heavy machinery of your brain and jam every cog and wheel you've ever suffered and triumphed to create. How simple it is to muddle, how insolently it invites you to invent new and foolish definitions for it. And, incredibly, we all do: "Wisdom is the ability to understand, not just know"; "Wisdom is the ability not to be misled by either end of an extreme"; "Wisdom is the ability to content yourself with the world as it is, not as you want it to be"; "Wisdom is the ability to know what's right". It's easy to sound wise when you're speaking in generalities, and equally easy to say, "Yes, but that's not what I meant, you've got me all wrong" or "No, no, I meant that in a different context" as soon as someone else comes along and proves, simply, logically, and empirically, that your definition was nothing but hot air.

It follows, then, that the only way to ensure you won't lose the argument is to come up with a definition for wisdom that nobody can disprove. The hidden premise here is that if you can win the argument, you somehow know enough to be considered wise, and you are therefore qualified to comment on things other people don't understand.

That seems to leave a bit to be desired, doesn't it?

x.x.x.x.x.x

It's raining now as I write this by the indolent light of a lantern in King's Cross train station, in a makeshift notebook of parchment and tin paperclips. I'm working what used to be my shift as a night watchwoman for the Order of the Phoenix, dressed as a shabby university student waiting for her train to arrive. King's Cross station is the entry point to the Order's escape network, through which we've been smuggling targeted Muggles to safety for the past six months. By day, I work as an undercover mail clerk for the Ministry of Magic, where I screen all incoming mail for Dark Magic.

Mail room duty on a good day is dull but tolerable. We see just enough Dark Magic there to keep things interesting. But nights in the train station - I'll be honest: That is a tense and terrible job. The numbers of Muggles we shuttle through each week is increasing; what's more, we are never sure if those people, wrapped in blankets, shaking, weeping, befuddled and frantic for their loved ones, are truly the only ones amongst their friends and families who are being hunted. There are many more we never know existed until they turn up dead or missing. Often these are the Muggle families of witches and wizards - which begs the question: How many more were being killed on spontaneous Death Eater raids? How many might we have saved, but didn't?

This was my job until I began writing the obituaries of the people the Death Eaters have killed. I do it because the last person who wrote obituaries for _The Daily Prophet _disappeared and, for some unfathomable, ridiculous, and likely very ill-informed reason, someone volunteered me to fill his shoes.

When I come to the train station now, it's check on the new recruits who share the position I recently held. I'm not much older than they are, these baby-faced kids straight out of Hogwarts. I suppose the only difference between us is that they haven't been at this job long enough to have realized that they aren't the guardians of innocence they were told they are, that the real fight is being fought elsewhere, that they are sentries standing at the front gate when the enemy has known all along to use the back door. This used to be a source of endless frustration for me, so strongly did I believe that we had too many people working in the escape networks, and not nearly enough in the field; but now I'm just supremely grateful that the Order of the Phoenix is squeamish about sending seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds off to die. I met a fourteen-year-old last week whose eighteen-year-old brother was killed in a Death Eater raid. I wrote about them both and _The Daily Prophet _paid me fifty Galleons for my trouble.

I have a confession: I'm writing this out of guilt and shame. I'm nineteen years old and I know nothing. I'm not qualified to write about anyone's life but my own. I wish I were, because nobody deserves to die and then have their story botched. But here I am, for whatever reason, for whatever purpose, hoping that - at the very least - I understand life well enough to write death with some small measure of dignity.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

**Disclaimer:** As thrilled as I'd be if I were J.K. Rowling, I am not her and I own nothing you recognize. Sigh.

**Author's Note: **July 2011: I finally got off my lazy bum and edited this after, I don't know, five years of letting it sit? Anyway, cheers. Hope you liked!


	2. Highway Driving

**- Chapter 1: Highway Driving -**

The sudden return of winter had spit a sleet storm on London, and I was wet and chilled to the bone when I arrived in my flat that dreary February morning.

The first thing I did was remove my cloak and toss it over the coat rack; and the second, kick my shoes off and throw them in the closet. Then I collapsed facedown on the living room couch and lay there without stirring. All was silent but for the sound of sleet rapping at the windows; my skull felt as if it had just been stuffed with cotton. Exhaustion had deadened my nerves and left me unable to keep my eyes closed.

A few moments passed before I rolled onto my back to avoid suffocation.

My flat was your typical city apartment: ten floors up, looking out over a busy street, windows perpetually dirty from rain, smog, and pigeon droppings. The paint was chipped in a few places, the doors all creaked, and the furniture, all secondhand, was frayed around the edges. But it was quiet, it had a good heating system, and it had running water. And above all, the rent was cheap.

After a time, I rose from the couch and headed to the bathroom for a shower; then, after drying off and donning some nightclothes, I sauntered back into the living room and sat down at the worktable I used as a desk. On it lay piles of paper and parchment: legal documents, a ledger, my rent contract, last year's tax returns, letters from friends and other members of the Order of the Phoenix, a journal, and other stuff of this nature. In the middle of all this chaos sat the crowning glory of my existence: a brand-new typewriter, which I had bought on sale for fifty percent of its original price, complete with two large packages of erasable paper; no wands, quills, or reams of parchment necessary.

Beside the typewriter was a bouquet of deep crimson roses in a blown glass vase—a Valentine's Day salutation from James, which he had sent just the day before alongside a delicate gold-rope necklace that I now wore as a talisman to stave off my loneliness. I hadn't seen James in almost two weeks.

His most recent letter was lying atop of a stack of extra paper, a corner of the page gently curling. Running my fingers lightly over the parchment, I picked it up and reread it.

_Happy Valentine's Day, Lily! _

_Just wanted to send you a little something to remind you I'd still be asking you to go out with me if you hadn't already said yes by now. (And I really really hope you like it, because I actually have no idea what kind of jewelry you're into.) _

_By the way, I got your gift. Thanks, it was brilliant! I've never had a dress shirt fit me that well before, it was almost like I had a woman shopping for me or something. Now I'll have no excuse showing up to interviews or whatnot looking like an unmade bed. Lily, you are seriously making a man out of me. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this. _

_Oh and the cookies you baked were TO DIE FOR. Why don't you bake more often? Actually, why are you ALL THE WAY OVER THERE, where I have to wait 'til every second week to see you? _

_How's the night shift been these past few days? You sounded tired-ish in your last letter, so I was wondering if everything's all right. Remember, life is too short to be taken seriously. _

_- I'm only being halfway serious about that. It sucks huge donkey bollocks that they keep you guys there so late, I still can't get over that. You should switch to the Gringotts janitorial staff so you can roll around in piles of gold at weird hours with me instead. - Maybe outside the vaults in the presence of a fire-spitting dragon and pissed off goblins. But that's not the point. I miss you. I want you to be my partner in this fight so badly - but more than that I want to be there to protect you. Maybe those are the same thing, I don't know. But it kills me to know that's not what's happening. _

_Life's been dull on my end this week. Driving me mad. I want to stir things up but I think I'm in a deadlock position right now. Which I guess is alright because I'm pretty sure I'll have an out in the near future, but I'm going mental all the same. Feels like a waste of life to be bored like this, but I guess in the scheme of things I'm better off than those bloody Death Eaters, who are so spooked by the world in general that they have to constantly inbreed just so they don't crap themselves in terror of their own offspring. _

_Love, _

_James_

_P.S. I have a day off coming up. I'm pretty sure it's not on the same day as yours, but I know Sirius's is. I'll switch with him and meet you at Headquarters after your night shift then._

I picked one of his roses out of the vase and held it to my lips, breathing its scent. I closed my eyes. All was silent and still. After a moment I flicked open my journal. Perhaps I could convince myself to go to sleep if I cleared my head a bit first.

_February 15th, 1979_

_4:29 AM_

_My family left the city when I was about five years old. _

I paused for a moment.

_- For some reason this is what I'm thinking about now, moving out of London. Actually we didn't live too far away from where I'm living right now, maybe a 15 minute ride on the Tube if that. Our flat was kind of similar to the one I'm living in now, too, but bigger and less run down. _

_I miss my family's home off the coast. It was the fact that you could always see the sky, and when you walked into town the air still smelled fresh, you could still hear crickets. I miss those innocent days. _

My head was filled with sleepless tension. I put my quill down and considered the typewriter before me. I was due in the mail room in less than eight hours.

_Fuck it. _

I pulled the typewriter to the front of the desk and laid my fingers upon the keys.

x.x.x.x.x.x

My family left the city when I was about five years old. My mother had given up her job as a criminal defense attorney because she was "tired of defending more hardened felons than innocent passersby" and felt it was time to stay home with her daughters; and my father, an engineer who had up until then been hard-pressed to find a well-paying job, had just gotten an offer from a building firm based near the coast. We bought a house in a small neighborhood near the western seaboard, where my grandparents lived, and moved out of London the following July.

We went through the usual moving routine—excavating everything from our closets to our wardrobes to our garbage bins and tossing the contents either into the dumpster or into boxes, haggling with moving agents, and waving good-bye to friends while secretly wondering whether we really would write to one another in one, two, three years' time.

I remember it being a hot day during the peak of summer when the moving van came, the kind of day that manages to be so humid that you can't tell the difference between the invisible mugginess and the sheen of sweat that refuses to evaporate from your skin. Traffic was heavy in front of our flat and pedestrians kept getting in the way of the movers, bumping into them as they schlepped our beds, our mattresses, our dining room table, our chairs, and our television down five flights of stairs and into the street. Mum and Dad were both disheveled and slightly frantic, still sealing boxes with large rolls of strapping tape and sticking colored labels on the sides; as for me, I was mostly just hungry.

I spent a good deal of time sitting on the balcony with Petunia and one of her school friends—a girl named Mary who lived one floor above us, if my memory serves me. Mary was small and round-faced with large brown eyes and a ponytail that stuck up at the top, where it was tied with a rubber band glued to a pair of pink plastic stars. She had a little sister who was about my age, a girl named Vicky with chin-length blond hair and who refused to wear anything even remotely pink. She and I had often played together—drawn on the sidewalk with chalk and played cops and robbers in the alley, that was—yet it had never occurred to either of us that the term for this relationship was 'friendship'.

Petunia and Mary understood it, though.

"Are you still going to come to our school, Petty?" Mary asked, sitting on the concrete balcony with her knees drawn up to her chest and looking demurely out at the scene below.

"No," Petunia sighed. She was perched on a footstool with her elbows on her knees, her chin rested on her palm—like a self-proclaimed queen staring resignedly at her rumpled kingdom and unconscionably frumpy subjects. "Mum and Dad say I'm going to go to a different school next year. This one's going to be too far away."

"So you're really leaving?"

Petunia sighed again, this time more dramatically; Vicky and I exchanged glances. Vicky rolled her eyes, and I smothered a giggle. "Yeah, I'm leaving," Petunia said. "Dad has a new job. That's why."

"Will we ever get to see each other again?" Mary said emphatically, her eyes wide. "They can't take best friends away from each other! Nothing can!"

"Yeah," Petunia responded, with equal fervor. "That's why I brought this." She reached into her pocket and pulled out two plastic friendship bracelets, each bearing half of a heart-shaped charm, jagged down their sides to make the heart look broken. With great ceremony she handed one of the bracelets to Mary, who promptly burst into tears. "As long as we have these, we'll never stop being friends."

A grocery truck roared down the center lane and a couple of cars blasted their horns. Vicky was sucking a lollipop. "That's mushy," she said, taking a loud slurp. "And stupid."

"I'm hungry," I added.

Vicky raised her eyebrows and popped the lollipop out of her mouth. She grinned, her teeth and lips stained with blue food coloring, and twirled it under my nose. I caught a whiff of saccharine and something else that may or may not have passed for blueberry. "Want some?"

"_Eugh!"_ I laughed, swatting at her hand. "It has your spit all over it!"

"Heehee, want some? Eh, eh?"

"That's _disgusting,"_ Petunia gasped as Vicky and I began wrestling, I trying to keep the lollipop away from my mouth, and she trying to wave it under my nose. "Eurgh, put that away!"

"Oof—haha, Vicky, you got some on my chin, ew, it's all sticky—"

At this she hopped off of me and bounced into Petunia's lap. "Ooh! Want some of my lollipop, Petty?"

Petunia shrieked and recoiled. With a screech and a thud, the footstool fell over and sent Petunia somersaulting backwards. Two pale, skinny legs went sailing through the air, and one of her pink and brown sandals flew off her foot. It struck the railing of the balcony, bounced, and spiraled down into the street, where it crashed against one of our metal trash cans and flipped the lid upside down.

"Girls?" Mum shouted. I jumped up and looked over the railing. She was standing on the sidewalk alongside the truck, craning her neck upwards. "What's going on up there?"

"VICKY'S ATTACKING ME!" Petunia shrieked. "SHE'S ATTACKING ME WITH HER LOLLIPOP AND SHE'S TRYING TO GIVE ME HER GERMS! AAAGHH, MA-_R-Y-Y-Y!_ GET YOUR SISTER OFF ME!"

"GIRLS! I TOLD YOU TO _BEHAVE!"_

"Vicky, stop that," Mary whimpered, clutching the railing. "That's icky, don't do that, you're making Petty mad!"

Not that this had any effect—Vicky and Petunia continued to grapple, Vicky with her ever-sticky lollipop giggling and smearing Petunia's face with blue sugar and saliva, and Petunia screeching like a banshee as she tried and failed to ward off her attacker. The two of them were causing a fantastic racket, squealing and yelping with limbs and shoes banging against concrete. I confess that I spent those two minutes jumping around by the railing and hooting in the manner of an alarmed monkey, knocking over the flowerpots Mum hadn't come for yet and sending dirt and potted plants flying through the air at positively thrilling speeds. Mary, for her part, had to keep ducking and cringing to avoid being kicked in the face by one of Petunia's flailing feet. At length Mum rushed in and pulled Vicky off of Petunia, told her sternly that it was not right to pick fights with other people's sisters, and threatened, half-jokingly, to have us all shipped off to the city zoo if we couldn't stop acting like animals.

"I'm not an animal," Petunia sniffed after Mum had left. "I hate you all. _Really."_

Mary went home shortly after the lollipop scene claiming her stomach hurt, and Petunia whiled away the rest of the afternoon sulking on the balcony with her knees drawn up to her chest, her cheeks dirty and tearstained. Vicky and I spent the remainder of our time playing with pebbles and talking quietly on the other end of the balcony as we watched the movers load the truck. Rush hour traffic began to clog the street as the clock struck four-thirty, then five o'clock in the evening. The cloud layer stirred itself up a bit and drifted in front of the sun, dulling its orange rays to a muted reddish glow.

"We should make a house for the mice," she suggested, making a small pile of pebbles and twigs. Her face bore an expression of seriousness. "My mum always puts out mouse traps for them. But I think they're cute."

I considered this for a moment. "How would we get them to live in the house, though?"

"Put up a sign that says, 'Mice, you can live here'. In a different language so they could understand it. Squeaks and stuff."

"Oh, what are you on about now?" Petunia burst out. "Trying to get the rodents to like our flat? Mum'll hit the ceiling."

"But we're not going to live here anymore, Petunia, just leave us alone—"

"Mum still doesn't want any mice," she interrupted, slumping back against the brick wall and folding her arms across her chest. "Stop making trouble for our parents."

"We're not." Even at the age of five, I couldn't fathom why any family of mice would want to move into an overturned flowerpot with a bunch of pebbles piled up in front of it—I suppose it was the influence of the books my mother had been reading to me, or perhaps the fact that no animal I'd met had ever done what I'd tried to get it to do. In any case, I still enjoyed pretending, so I turned away from Petunia and began moving the pebbles into a more pleasing arrangement.

This was the way our parents found us when the truck was ready to leave: Vicky and me crouched on the balcony playing with a cracked flowerpot, and Petunia sulking by the wall. Vicky was told she had to go home, and Petunia and I were hoisted to our feet by our tired, aggravated father. "Alright, kids," he said, wiping sweat from his brow. "We're ready to get in the car and leave now. Your mother's packed some juice and sandwiches for the trip; they're in the cooler in the backseat. Come on, we've got at least four hours of driving ahead of us."

"I'll walk you home, Vicky," Mum offered. "It's nearly six o'clock; you must be starved."

She shook her head vigorously.

Mum smiled and held out her hand. "Come on, poppet. Don't be shy."

Vicky stood rooted to the spot, as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening. Then, suddenly, she burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck, nearly strangling me.

"I'll never forget you, Lily," she sobbed. "I'll write to you every day for the rest of my life!"

"I'll write to you too," I replied. And with that I started bawling.

x.x.x.x.x.x

We drove northwest that night for nearly five and a half hours, Petunia and I dozing lightly in the backseat with the juice cooler while our mother squinted in the dark at a map. The first three hours were spent on the highway, with the sun sliding low over the road and eventually leaving an endless blackness to swallow us up. Street lights raced past us at regular intervals, flashing bright as we overtook them, and the highway hummed and whined persistently beneath us as we crossed bridges and overpasses, the sound muffling our parents' voices—that incessant, white-noise ringing of suspended concrete against tires and open air.

"You know, I can't really see this map...we should probably stop somewhere and have a look at it by a real light...was that exit forty-seven or forty-eight?"

"I don't know, darling; I'm focused on keeping this bozo from crashing into us, in fact he's being a bloody prick—"

"John, calm down; you're starting to drive erratically. We've got precious cargo in the backseat."

"Yes, I'm aware; it's just that—Jesus Christ, what are you doing, you idiot?" Dad spun the wheel and our tires screeched just as another car raced past us, coming within two feet of our side view mirrors and jerking Petunia and me out of our trances. There was a moment of chaos as we swerved back into the lane, eliciting a horrified gasp and a string of curse words from Mum; half a second later, a motorist roared past us, shouting and making obscene gestures with his free hand. Mum returned the gestures fervently.

"What a bunch of fucking idiots, swerving and tailgating like that! As if they're trying to get us all killed! And with the kids in the backseat to boot!"

"Bastards should be arrested," Dad muttered.

Mum slumped back in her seat. "Do tell."

Petunia and I exchanged glances. Her eyes were wide.

"Do you figure we'll make it?" she asked quietly, so that our parents couldn't hear her.

I drew my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees, resting my head against the windowsill to stare out at the highway. "Maybe, maybe not."

Dad glanced up at the rearview mirror. "How are you girls doing back there?"

Both of us were silent for a moment; then Petunia burst into tears and wailed, "Dad, I feel like I'm going to throw up."

I was terrified of vomit, so I immediately followed suit and began crying as well. Mum sighed and reached into her knapsack for a plastic bag, which she handed back to Petunia; but rather than open it, Petunia merely crumpled it and clutched it in her fist, sobbing.

"Petunia, sweetheart, if you're feeling sick—"

"I think she's just tired, Laurel," Dad murmured.

"Well, it's certainly been a long day for all of us...Lily, love, calm down; just close your eyes and try to go to sleep, your sister will be fine..." Then she turned to Dad and said quietly, "Do you think your parents will still be up when we get there? At this rate we won't be arriving until past midnight."

"They should be; they both said they wanted to wait for us. They haven't seen the girls in years. Lily was hardly two last time we made it out to their place."

"Goodness...has it really been that long?"

"Time flies, eh?"

"It really does...are you alright, Petunia?"

Hiccoughing, Petunia shook her head and curled up in the seat, leaning her forehead against the window. Mum watched her for a few moments, her brow furrowed. She frowned. "Petunia?"

She didn't answer. Mum and Dad exchanged glances.

"Do you think we should pull over?" Mum said hesitantly.

Dad sighed and bore down on the steering wheel. "I think we'll be fine. Look; there's our exit, coming up on the right. We'll be there in no time."

We got lost on the back roads, of course. Mum couldn't see the map without a light on inside the car, and Dad couldn't see where he was going with such a light; besides, he said, we were in the countryside now, and everyone knew country roads made zero sense even when they were properly labeled, which wasn't often. The best thing to do was to backtrack and follow our migratory instincts ("evolution's gift to man," he called them). If birds could do it, he reasoned, then of course humans had the knack as well; surely a country road passed by more visible landmarks than a flock of birds flying a thousand feet up in the effing troposphere. At any rate, the worst that could happen was a cloudy sky if we had to get out of the car and find our position by parallax, ha ha ha.

"Alas," Mum said as we lurched around the bend of what appeared to be a gravel hiking trail, "I think those genes have lain dormant for so many generations now that nature has quietly decided to phase them out in favor of roadmaps. Look, there's a sign right up there: 'Petrol station: six miles'. If nothing else, we could at least ask for directions."

"Well, if we get out of this within the next few hours, we should have enough directions as well as petrol to make it to the coast. We're getting near now, trust me. I'm following my nose; I can—" he took a deep whiff for effect— "smell the sea from here."

"John," Mum bit out, "your nose has led us off the bloody map. It is time. To pull. Over."

"Excuse me, where did that come from? You've just spent the past two hours remarking on how you can't even see the map."

"Yes. Because you keep refusing to stop somewhere and let me have a look at it!"

"Kindly leave it alone, dear. I'm trying to retrace our steps, and the absence of streetlamps isn't making the process any easier."

"Don't fight," Petunia murmured. "Please don't fight."

"Stay out of this, Petunia darling," Dad said curtly. "Take a nap. We'll get there in short order."

Mum sighed and massaged her forehead, resting her elbow on the windowsill.

x.x.x.x.x.x

It was past midnight when we pulled into the drive of our grandparents' oceanfront cottage. I had fallen into a fitful sleep shortly beforehand, and I woke to the sound of our tires grinding to a halt against loosely packed gravel. The front porch was lit, throwing small pools and arcs of warm yellow light over the door and steps. Lifting my head from the windowsill, I saw Grandfather's gaunt, straight-backed form walking out in short sleeves and sandals to greet us, limping slightly.

Dad parked the car, turned off the ignition, and unlocked the doors. "Well, ladies, we've arrived at last. Say hello to Grandma and Grandpa!"

"Mm," Mum said, stretching. "I hope we haven't kept them up too long."

"Nah, my dad's almost always up late; he doesn't mind. Let's start unloading the boot, eh?"

"What about your mum?"

"She's a lot like my dad—likes to stay up reading at night. She'll be glad to see you."

"Well, as long as we're not descending on them..." She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked over her shoulder. "Girls, are you awake? Come on, sweethearts, we're here."

Petunia stirred in the seat; apparently she had begun to doze off. "We are?"

"Yes, ma'am," Dad replied, opening his door and swinging his legs out of the car. "Ah, how the foot loves gravel after six hours of pumping a pedal. Hoo, baby!"

"Hello, John, how've you been?" Grandfather said jovially, grasping Dad's hand and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug as the rest of us tumbled out of the car. "Good God, man, it's been years! Ah, and here are Petunia and Lily—" He kissed each of us on the cheek and ruffled our hair, laughing. "Lord, you two have grown. The last time I saw Lily she was hardly walking! And Petunia, my goodness! You're at least a head taller now; what happened to you?"

Petunia, still clutching her plastic bag, cracked a tiny smile. Grandfather gave her and me a gentle push forward. "Now go on, you two, say hello to your grandmother while I help your parents unload the luggage. Grandmother's making hot chocolate for you."

By now Mum had salvaged the roadmaps and snacks from the backseat and placed them back in her knapsack. "Hello, Laurel," Grandfather said as she joined us, pecking her on the cheek. "How are you?"

Mum burst out laughing, her voice suddenly lighter, more relaxed. "Oh, it's been a long day, but we survived. It's good to see you, Patrick. How have you and Helen been?"

"Very well," he said as he and Dad began hefting our overnight bags out of the car. "Things are quiet year-round out here; it does Helen a lot of good to be away from the city."

"She does seem happier now that she's out of London, I'll attest to that."

"Oh, there's no comparison," Dad said as we walked up the front steps. With his free hand he pulled the door open and poked his head into the house. "Hi, Mum, how are you?"

"Oh, wonderful, John, it's so good to see you—" She kissed him once on each cheek and then bent down to greet Petunia and me. "Ah, Lily and Petunia, my two little pixies! Look how you've grown! Goodness gracious, you've gotten big. You've been feeding them well, Laurel."

"Well, I certainly to try," Mum said as Grandmother bustled into the kitchen and came back with two steaming mugs. Pressing them into our hands, she said,

"Here, have some hot chocolate. It'll warm you up; it's chilly out there tonight."

Mum gave her a sidelong glance. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea, Helen; it'll keep them up all night. These two are a handful when they're all sugared up."

"Nonsense! It'll put them right to sleep. And besides, they're still so tiny, the two of them; they can use it," Grandmother said, gazing fondly at us. "I'm going to call them both Thumbelina."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Incidentally, Grandmother was right. Petunia and I fell asleep within minutes of going to bed, though I heard Petunia wake several times during the night—the first time when she rolled off the edge of her cot and landed with an impressive thud on the thin rug covering the wooden floor of the loft where we were sleeping, and the second when she jerked awake with a startled yell and spent the next minute or so sitting up in bed, hyperventilating and staring at me from across the loft. Towards dawn she fell into a deeper sleep, her body curled tightly beneath her woolen blanket with her back turned to me, her hair spread like a dim shadow across her pillow in the gray pre-dawn light.

It was about half past five o'clock when I awoke in earnest; my only indication of the time was the diffuse, colorless glow that seeped past the curtains near the foot of my cot and the sounds of my parents' and grandparents' voices in the kitchen below. Plates and coffee cups clinked softly in between snatches of conversation as Dad told the other adults which roads we would take on our way to the new house, and as Mum warned—two or three times—that that we should get a move on sooner rather than later, as the moving van was likely to arrive early from the warehouse where it had been parked all night. I could hear the rustle of a map being spread over the table as Mum and Dad double-checked our course while Grandmother and Grandfather moved quietly about the kitchen, making coffee and toast and talking about the driving conditions; it looked, apparently, like it was going to be a drizzly, foggy morning.

Curious, I pushed my covers back; and, with the cot creaking beneath me, I pulled the heavy brocaded curtain away from the window. Dim, cold light flooded the loft and illuminated my grandparents' trunks of clothing and linens, Grandmother's extensive array of quilts, and Petunia's sleeping form; and there, some fifty feet below, a hundred yards away, was the choppy, steel-gray expanse of the ocean, churning and frothing at the lip of the shore. A brisk, salty-smelling wind swept my hair away from my face and left my skin feeling cool and damp. A mother seagull was leading her brood into the surf.

"Lily, I'm trying to sleep," Petunia moaned. "Close the bloody window, you idiot."

Immediately I rolled my eyes and yanked the curtain back into place, then flopped dejectedly onto my pillow.

Something was poking my cheek. Lifting my torso onto my elbows, I began examining the pillow—the something was sharp, pointed. I picked it out of the fabric. It was a downy feather; the root was what had been poking me.

"And don't pick at Grandmother's pillows," Petunia sniped. "Down pillows are really rare. You can't even buy one for a million pounds."

I stuck the root of the feather back into the weave of the pillowcase and began pressing at the tip, but the stem broke. "Go away."

"Well, you stop being bad, and maybe I'll think about it."

"You said you were asleep, stupidhead, how do you know I was being bad?"

"I was asleep until you woke me up, and besides, I never said I was asleep in the first place."

I buried my face in my quilt and made a noise of disgust. "I'm going to tell Mum you were spying on me. Then you'll be sorry."

Petunia opened her mouth to retort, but that was when we heard Mum climbing the staircase; a few moments later, she was pulling back our covers and shaking us gently by the shoulders. "Rise and shine, sleepyheads, we're moving into our new house today. Come along and have some breakfast before we say goodbye to Grandmother and Grandfather."

Petunia rolled her eyes at me and swung her legs over the side of the cot to follow Mum down the stairs. Angrily I followed suit and kicked a small throw pillow in Petunia's direction, which she dodged with a dainty step to the side, crinkling her nose and sticking her tongue out at me.

Breakfast was a quick affair—Dad told Petunia and me to eat some buttered toast and bacon, drink some orange juice, get dressed, and help Mum pack our toothbrushes and nightclothes. Petunia jumped up from her seat as soon as she had finished and followed Mum back into the loft as Dad had instructed, but I hung back for a moment, wary of being behind Petunia on anything, most of all a staircase as steep as this one. Grandmother smiled and blew me a kiss from across the table. "Go on, pixie. Help your mother."

I looked up at Dad, who nodded; reluctantly I slid off my chair and pushed it back towards the table. Grandfather chuckled and reached into his pocket. "Well, before you leave, little lady," he said, grasping my hand and opening it with tawny, calloused fingers, "I think I should give you a good luck charm." And with that he placed a small, carved wooden dolphin in my palm, its eyes, beak, and flukes meticulously whittled. Grandfather winked. "He'll keep you company. They're always smiling, dolphins."

Amazed, I turned the figurine over and examined its belly—a smooth, reddish brown curve, cleanly faceted by the whittling knife. Grandmother blew her breath out in a light hiss. "Oh, yes, your grandfather just loves playing with his knives," she tutted. "I expect he'll chop off a finger one of these days, he does it so often. He'll carve anything he can get his hands on, honest to goodness. Sometimes I worry that he'll carve up our furniture if he can't find anything else."

"He could sell some of his figurines, Mum," Dad remarked, peering at the dolphin in my hand. "He'd get a nice price for them."

Grandfather made a clucking noise. "No, no, I wouldn't sell these." He reached into his pocket again and pulled out another small figurine, this one a blue whale. "This one here is for Petunia—ahh, and here she is right now! Petunia, come here, I've got something for you."

Curious, she left Mum's side and approached us. Grandfather took her hand as well and opened it, pressing the whale into her palm. "To keep you company during the drive to your new house," he said with a wink. "Someone to say hello to when you wake up in the morning."

Looking faintly dumbstruck, Petunia rolled the figurine about in her hand, running her thumb lightly over its back and fluke. Then her eyes moved to the dolphin I was holding, and she stared for a moment before looking away. "Thank you, Grandfather," she said, hugging him briefly around the waist. "They're very pretty. I'm going to put mine on my night table." Then she turned and shuffled towards the door, where Mum was waiting for us with our pajamas draped loosely over her arm, her knapsack on her shoulder. Blushing, I hugged Grandfather as well and kissed him lightly on the cheek before scampering after Mum and Petunia.

It was shortly after six by the time that all the farewells had been said and we were ready to leave; car doors slammed; overnight bags were thrown into the boot; seatbelts were buckled. The tires crackled dully against the gravel as Dad backed us out of the drive and onto the open road, and in a few minutes we were driving through a thin, sporadic fog, the only car to be seen for miles. From time to time I would tear my eyes away from the window and notice Petunia staring at my dolphin.

It was a short drive, only half an hour or so. Mum and Dad spent it speaking in low tones, Mum checking the inventory lists and making suggestions as to where our miscellaneous boxes should go. At one point Petunia asked why she and I simply hadn't stayed with our grandparents—surely our parents didn't want two little kids running around while our furniture was being moved into the house?

"Well, we were going to do that," Mum explained after a moment, "but your grandfather is having an x-ray of his leg today, and your grandmother has to go with him because the doctors don't want him driving alone. We couldn't leave you and Lily alone while they were in the hospital."

"Oh," Petunia said, glancing down at her feet. "Why not?"

"Because you're not old enough to be left alone. Something bad could happen and you wouldn't know what to do."

"Why does Grandfather need to have an x-ray of his leg?" I asked.

Mum and Dad exchanged glances.

"He was shot in the leg during World War II," Dad replied after a brief pause. "It wasn't a major wound, but it was enough that he's been having some trouble with it since he came home from the war. That's why he has that limp—he's being x-rayed today because the doctors want to be sure the bone is holding up. He goes back to have it checked once every year."

"He was in a _war?"_

"Yes, a very big one. He was a corpsman in the British Navy; he rescued wounded soldiers on the beach and took them back to the ships to treat their injuries. Very often he would have to do that while the enemy was shooting at him."

Both fascinated and disturbed by this new information, I opened my mouth to ask how he had survived, but a sniffle from Petunia's direction stopped me. Mum and I both turned to look at her; she'd started crying again, her cheeks already tearstained and grubby-looking. Mum leaned around the side of her seat and studied her for a moment. "Petunia. Sweetheart, are you alright?"

Now she burst into hysterics, clutching the whale figurine in her fist; I almost began shouting at her for trying to strangle it. "I wanted to trade with Lily because I thought the whale was so ugly and I didn't like it," she bawled, "but I—I—" _hiccough—_ "the dolphin is so much prettier but I'm really sorry and—" another hiccough— "and—and I wish he didn't have to get an x-ray of his leg, and..." She curled up in the seat, sobbing into her knees. Mum sighed and turned away, rummaging in her knapsack until she found a handful of tissues.

"Here, Petunia," she said, holding them out. "Hold onto these, alright?"

"Yes, cheer up, Petunia," Dad added. "There's our house, right there, down the road! Look at that, eh? Two stories, a garden in front, and less than half an hour away from your grandparents. We can even visit them tonight if you like."

Petunia made no response. Dad watched her for a few moments, then sighed as he turned the steering wheel and guided us up the hill.

The neighborhood was richly packed with mature trees and shrubs. Light and shade faded into one another in the overcast dawn, and small beads of moisture gathered on the windows and windshield as the mist thickened. Large, full-bodied maple and oak trees lined the street, and shrubs, lilac bushes, and honeysuckle blossoms formed the property lines between the houses and cottages scattered along the semi-paved roadside—indeed, the entire place seemed to be bursting with green foliage, spread out over acres of overgrown lawns.

Dad parked us in the drive and unlocked the doors; I shoved my door open immediately and hopped out onto the gravel drive. I took a deep breath: the environs smelled of wet leaves and grass seed. The air was cool, fresh, damp. Immediately I felt my shirt begin to cling to my skin.

The house had a stone and cedar wood face, and near the front door stood a tall, broad-leafed cherry tree, its branches swaying gently in the breeze; there was a cast-iron porch light mounted beneath a dark wooden overhang. All of its curtains were pulled back, revealing its white walls, its wooden staircase beside the entrance to the kitchen, and its perfectly empty interior.

No sooner had we begun unloading the car than the moving van appeared on the end of the street, puffing clouds of grayish smoke as it groaned to a stop behind us. Petunia and I were told to stay out of the way; shortly thereafter Petunia disappeared onto the back stoop, and I perched myself on the front porch, leaning against the wooden pillar that supported the overhang. From there I watched the crew of moving men carry our boxes, beds, tables, and chairs in through the door, holding the dolphin quietly in my fist and thinking morosely of Vicky, Petunia, and a wooden peg leg.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Clumps of ice were sliding half-melted down my window when I finished, dotting the typewriter with lumpy, slow-moving shadows. Gray morning light was seeping through a layer of clouds. It was about half-past eight in the morning now, the quiet ticking of the clock barely audible over the muffled bustle of traffic in the street below.

A weary soreness was taking hold in the corners of my eyes. Gingerly I rearranged the piles of paper and writing utensils on the desk; then I gathered James's letters and rearranged those as well, placing them at the foot of the vase that held his roses.

I hadn't sent him a reply yet for lack of time, so I set about doing that now. I imagined him sitting on the floor beside my desk, a mug of tea in hand, looking up with curiosity as I replied to his letter out loud. He would grin and tell me I was up too high and that I should come and sit in his lap instead.

I glanced around the room: It was a depressing sight. For the most part I loathed myself for staying up until nearly nine in the morning, but there was another part of me that wanted to collapse in bed and huddle there like a lonely child.

Rubbing my eyes, I counted my reasons for being happy.

_One: I am alive. Two: James. Three: Life could really be much worse. _

I dipped my quill and blearily began to write.

_Happy Valentine's Day, James!_

_Oh, so you did get my gift! So glad you like it, it's Italian-made and I thought you'd look so good in it. Wear it with a nice pair of jeans and a belt, and leave the top two buttons undone, please!_

_You guessed right about the necklace. It's gorgeous. Thank you, thank you. I'm wearing it right now and I don't think I'll be taking it off any time soon. I think of you every time I see it in the mirror. _

_Anyway, you know why I don't bake that often, I'm afraid I'll burn down the whole kitchen! Very much flattered that you think I'm so good at it, though. That was only my second time baking with magic and I was actually a little terrified that I was going to poison you, so I ate the first cookie. It seemed okay, so I figured you'd be able to handle the rest (wink, wink). Maybe you really did mean they were to die for!_

_I'm always tired when I write to you, so don't worry about it. What is this world if not a war zone, anyway? It's tiring for everyone. As for switching to the Gringotts shift, is that even possible? If it is, why don't you switch to the King's Cross shift? It's got to be better than whatever you're doing down in Gringotts. At least up here there's fresh air. _

_It's interesting how you talk about us being partners in this fight. When we first joined the Order I thought that was what we were going to be, fighting Death Eaters side-by-side or whatever that means. But now, to be honest, I don't really understand what either of us is doing anymore. I guess we're at the bottom of the ladder and that's why we _haven't_ fought any Death Eaters yet. But I'm not even sure how we're supposed to climb it anymore. The Order is made of a couple dozen core fighters and then the rest of us just exist, working sentry shifts in odd places. It's obvious that we're not in that core group. I don't know what to think anymore. _

_At any rate, enough of that. What would you say if I told you I just started writing a memoir? Because I think I just have. I miss the innocence of childhood. Maybe that's why I just stayed up all night writing. Remember how we were barely a year ago, Christmas at Hogwarts, skating on the lake? And the sunshine during the spring? I miss that. I miss the younger us, James. _

_I miss you. And I'm not all the way over here, you're all the way over there. Come visit me. _

_- Lily_

I put my quill down. To my surprise, my eyes were stinging with tears. I sucked in a breath and held it. Then, after a moment, I wiped my eyes and walked away from my desk.

In my bedroom, I watered the small houseplant sitting on my windowsill and gently pruned the dead blossoms from its stems, thinking this might help it grow new leaves. Then I turned up the thermostat and lay down on my bed, listening to the radiator hiss to life as a procession of trucks screeched into the intersection below.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Author's Note: **July 2011 - So this is the revamped version of this chapter. I pared down some excess details and changed the letters between James and Lily to make them more consistent with later chapters. All the background details of this fic don't quite make sense yet as I haven't finished re-tooling, but the overall plot hasn't changed from what it was before I started editing. So, I don't know, I hope you like it! Review if the mood strikes. :)


	3. The Mail Clerk

**- Chapter 2: The Mail Clerk -**

It was cold and vaguely musty in my flat when I awoke just before noon, feeling as though I had just floated to the surface of a dark soup of runny shadows. Several minutes passed during which I could only stare up at the ceiling and watch it spin, a haze of grogginess lingering like a tunnel just outside my peripheral vision.

I was beginning to drift off again when my alarm clock began ringing from my bedside table. Cursing, I hit the snooze button and flopped back onto my pillow.

_Mailroom duty in half an hour. Fuck. _

With a sigh, I pushed back my covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

I arrived in the mailroom twenty-three minutes later. It was in its usual state, with two or three dozen owls perched on the windowsills, in the rafters, and on the furniture, hooting, preening, and nipping at the letters tied to their legs. All the windows were open to allow the owls to come and go, as usual, and today we had a chilly draft to show for it. There were envelopes flying about here and there where the wind had leaked in around our insulation charms and lifted the mail off the desks, and the room smelled faintly of parchment and owl feathers.

"Not the most efficient system they could've come up with, eh?" said a voice as I picked up a disordered pile of letters and tapped them against the desk. "A couple charms here, a little black magic there, that'd fix things up."

I looked up; it was a whiskered, ginger-haired man in his early twenties, grinning toothily from behind several foot-high stacks of parchment and envelopes. I blinked. I recognized that face from my trips to the Leaky Cauldron with Alice; this was the face that opened the bar drunk and closed it drunk. "Mundungus Fletcher. What are you doing here?"

"Filling in for one of your colleagues," Mundungus winked. "He was feeling a bit under the weather, if y'know what I mean."

_What were they thinking, letting him in here? _I thought. "Well, I'm here now, did they say you could leave when another staff member arrived?"

"Yes, they did, in fact," someone replied. I turned and saw Hestia Jones—a round-faced, pink-cheeked brunette who had graduated two years ahead of me, and who had been known at Hogwarts being able to cook and bake as well as the kitchen elves—sealing and addressing envelopes at a desk near the windows. "Your work here is done, Mundungus. Lily and I can handle the rest of this."

Mundungus looked up, still grinning. The ratty gray cap he wore was drooping over his left eye, reminding me of a screever I'd recently seen bickering with a homeless man over chalk near Parliament.

"That means you're free to go," I said flatly.

Mundungus pushed his chair back and stood up, his grin widening. "Your wish is my command," he said as he stumbled towards the door, swaying slightly, the sash of his coat dragging on the floor. With a drunken flourish he straightened his cap and disappeared into the hall, whistling the tune of London Bridge. When he was out of earshot, I turned to Hestia.

"Which crackpot decided to let him touch the Ministry's mail?" I asked bluntly. "Last I saw him, he was taking his twelfth shot at the pub."

"Haven't the faintest," Hestia replied, folding a letter into thirds and sliding it into an envelope. "All I know is that Benjy Fenwick is heading out into the field and isn't going to be working here anymore. Trouble is, we've no one to replace him—apparently someone saw Mundungus slouching about outside the Ministry this morning and decided he was sober enough to at least tie strings for the mail."

"Real jack-of-all-trades, that one," I said dryly.

"He does know the black markets. He's useful in tracking dark objects."

"If he's ever sober enough to see straight."

Hestia snorted. "Life's a compromise." She leaned over her desk and reached towards the owl perched there, holding out a letter. "All right, pal, give me your leg. That's the ticket."

I watched her silently for a moment. My eyes hurt. "Do we have coffee? If not, I think I'll go find some."

"Oh, yes, I made a pot this morning. It's over by the door. Help yourself, but it's probably cold now; I forgot to refresh the warming charm."

"That's alright, I just need the caffeine. Thanks." I tripped over the leg of a chair on my way to the coffee table. "So, um. Where are we now, workload-wise?"

"We're somewhat behind," Hestia replied, giving me a sidelong look as I fumbled with the coffee pot. I squinted at the lid and tried to unscrew it.

"You might try flipping the top open," she said after a moment.

I blinked. "Ah. That's right. I'd forgotten about that." I picked up one of the spare mugs set out on the table and filled it. "Sorry. I'm fading in and out today, apparently."

"You need more sleep, Lily."

"I'm fine. I'm functional."

Hestia continued to look doubtfully at me, but she raised an eyebrow and turned back to her work when I merely shrugged and took a swig of coffee. "Don't bank on keeping this up, that's all I'm trying to tell you. Anyway, there actually is something that needs to be done." She shuffled through a pile of papers on her desk. "We need an obituary written, sooner rather than later. Our main writer just left the country. Not the most pressing job, but one of the higher-ups wants it done. You know."

I gulped another mouthful of coffee without lowering my mug. "Oh. And they want me to write it, is that it?"

"Well. We shift workers in the mailroom want you to write it, since the task fell on us and you're the most literary one here." Hestia pulled a wry little smile. "We have all the research done on this bloke, anyway. All you'd have to do is go through it and write some drivel to put in the newspaper. They'd take it. He was a bit of a hotshot; everyone just wants a good, nostalgic read. Especially now," she added dryly. "Can't fault people for wanting to remember the dead when there are so many of them crowding the graveyards."

I exhaled slowly; I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath. "An obituary, hm?"

A ghost of a smile passed over her lips. "I'm not sure how much you'll like the deceased, though."

"Why, who was he?"

"A millionaire, prince of the railroad. He died a drunk. Alcohol poisoning."

I blinked again as the words registered in my mind. "Am I supposed to romanticize alcohol poisoning to make sure people get the read they want?"

"Well…I don't know. Not really. I'm not sure actually," Hestia said uncomfortably. "The thing is, this drunkard has been funneling money to us—the Order of the Phoenix—under the table for years now, not that you'd mention that anywhere in a public newspaper when we're trying to stay underground. He started years before you graduated. Totally useless in a fight, but he kept us funded."

"Oh." I wasn't sure what to make of that. "I see."

"And the general consensus is that you'd be able to spin a good yarn about this one, what with our actual obituary writer…gone," Hestia continued, fidgeting. I chewed my lip; her expression told me that 'gone' meant something along the lines of 'hiding for his life in Ireland or Finland'. "Here's his information—life history, vocation, all that; Dorcas Meadowes took care of it last night. The Daily Prophet doesn't charge by the line, either, so you shouldn't have too much of a length restriction."

"Oh," I said again. "Er. Thanks."

Hestia pursed her lips. "Sorry to put you on the spot. But you're the best writer here."

"I wouldn't have thought it's that…difficult to write an obituary, if you already have all the research done," I said hesitantly. "I mean…"

"You'd be surprised," Hestia said quickly. "Please, Lily, just do it. You can get it done in a few hours if you're quick about it; it'll take all week if we hand it off to anyone else. Anyway, I'd write it myself, but I'm really no good at this sort of thing."

"Does writing it mean I don't have to address envelopes today?"

"You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Deal?"

I blew out a breath and picked up the pile of documents and newspaper clippings on Hestia's desk. "Fine, I'll do it. I have one request, though—put in a good word for me if the obituary sucks and anyone gets it in their head to fire me for it."

"Fair enough," Hestia said, removing the stack of unaddressed envelopes and unsealed letters from my desk and dumping it onto hers. "Not that anyone's going to fire you if you write a less than stellar obituary. In any case, they're not going to publish it under your real name; you'll have a nom de plume and whatnot. You're a mail clerk, for God's sake."

This time I laughed, the sound of it harsh and bitter in my ears._ And if I want to stay alive,_ I thought, _a mail clerk is probably all I'll ever be. _

"Fine by me," I said, spreading the news clippings out before me and opening a fresh roll of parchment. "A nom de plume—I never wrote this at all. I can take that."

x.x.x.x.x.x

_Name: Jonathan J. Paxton_

_Date of Birth: January 18, 1952_

_Date of Death: February 19, 1979_

I stared blankly at the page. My mailroom shift was nearly over, and almost an hour had passed since my quill had last touched the parchment. Scattered about the desktop were newspaper articles, photographs, and a seemingly bottomless pile of documents on Paxton's stocks (which were bought and sold by a hired broker), numerous records of his alcoholic incidents (some of which had led to arrest or hospitalization), and publications on his few minor acts of philanthropy (for which I supposed he was going to be remembered). His father owned the railroad company, rendering Jonathan J. Paxton himself little more than the heir to a small commercial empire. He was the ornament of his father's enterprise, the pet of twittering cocktail conversation; the stories of his alcoholism never reached the newspapers, but his hospital records, obtained God only knew how by Dorcas Meadowes, told a less rosy tale. Paxton was in that unique spot where he could be both the public pride and the private shame of the world's Wizarding community, and I found myself resisting his story. _Glitter, vodka, and noise,_ I thought. _Why do I hate this man so much?_

I pinched my eyes shut for a moment. When I opened them, Hestia was shuffling through a stack of flyers, licking her finger as she flicked them apart and set them in small piles for mailing. Owls hooted from their perches on various pieces of furniture. I slumped lower over the crumpled drafts before me; I could not think of a single coherent sentence, much less a charitable one for Paxton. The Order of the Phoenix would never be able to acknowledge his contributions in public. I felt silly and trapped; I couldn't write about the only material I had to work with.

The mailroom door creaked open, and someone walked in. Cautious footfalls, coming in my direction.

"Hello, Lily?"

It was Remus Lupin, looking more tousled than usual in a frayed coat and scarf. I counted several gray hairs amongst his head of light brown ones, and a fresh scar beneath his ear; I wondered if he'd slept at all over the past few days.

"How've you been, Remus?"

"Oh, the usual," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "But I heard you were writing something dazzling." He peered over my shoulder. "Bit odd they put you up to this. Whose idea was it?"

"No clue." I massaged the corners of my eyes with my fingertips. "That seems like something I should probably start worrying about, at some point."

"I think that's a good idea," Remus agreed. He sat down on the edge of the desk. "I wanted to see some of those documents, actually, if you don't mind?"

"Help yourself." I sipped at my coffee. The stuff was cold now, bitter and stale-smelling. "If you come up with anything nostalgic or schmaltzy to say, by all means, let me in on it."

A faint smile crossed Remus's lips. "I'll let you know if I think of anything."

"Yeah. As you can see, I'm not exactly at the top of my game here." I gestured toward the piles of crumpled parchment lying on my desk.

"Well, he was a philanthropist," Remus said, rather unhelpfully. "That was something."

I sighed. "That he was. But why? That's the question, right? At least, that's the question if I'm to write an obituary, not a eulogy."

Remus pressed his lips together, so that the scar above his mouth stood out. "I think you're probably over-thinking this. I'm amazed Dorcas managed to dig up conversation transcripts, anyway. I didn't even know they kept things like that around." He gave my shoulder a light squeeze. "I've got to get back to work. Good luck writing that."

"I thought you wanted to see some of the documents?"

"I did. And I saw them. That's actually all I wanted." Remus reached for the doorknob and gave me a little smile. "I'll see you 'round, Lily. Stay safe."

I opened my mouth to reply, but the words died on my tongue at the sight of his retreating back. After a moment I noticed Hestia watching me.

"Sorry, Lily," she said hesitantly. "I didn't think it'd give you this much trouble."

I pressed my lips together and glanced at the clock. My shift in the train station was going to begin in twenty minutes. "It's an obituary," I said, marveling silently at just how strange it sounded to say that aloud. I picked up the parchment, folded it, and put it in my shirt pocket; the rest of the documents I placed in the lining of my coat. "But it's fine, I've written things like it before. I'll take care of it."

"You have? Do tell."

"It was a eulogy. When I was seventeen."

Hestia tilted her head and looked at me as if she didn't quite believe me, but didn't want to call me a liar. "A eulogy," she repeated. "When you were seventeen?"

"Mmhm. Yep."

"You're serious?"

"Yeah, surprisingly. You'd think they'd have got someone older to do it, but apparently the planets aligned in my favor. So I did it." I put my hands in my pockets and stood there for a moment. Then I realized I was going into a reverie and jolted out of it. "And for some reason that was that."

Hestia was still watching me curiously. "Odd."

"I'm not denying it. Anyway, I've got to go. Thanks for handling my envelopes."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Working the night shift at King's Cross was like hanging suspended at the portal between two worlds. The terminal was a dark, echoing cavern, sectioned off from the sky by a thin lattice of arched metal and glass; a large, pale-faced clock hung above the platforms, wrenching the minutes by, gleaming in the filtered moonlight. It was beneath this shimmer and emptiness that we ushered in the trains that vanished into the night with our refugees.

On shift with me were four others. There was Han Li, a Ravenclaw in my graduating class who kept a quiet vigil at the newspaper stand; there was Sirius Black, who tended to stay closest to me, regardless of my position or disguise; and then there were Gideon and Fabian Prewett - red-haired, freckled, both twenty-four and typically disguised as watch peddlers or students in transit. Being the most experienced of the lot of us, they escorted the refugees into the station while the rest of us stood guard.

I was working the coffee stand this week, sitting behind the coffee counter with my feet up, a gray beret tipped over my eyes and a newspaper spread over my knees as I pretended to sleep. Chalkboards painted with the week's coffee specials hung on the back wall, almost garish in their cheeriness. There were very few travelers this morning—one or two businessmen and a few low-budget, confused-looking tourists who appeared to be backpacking through London. Barring the ticking of the clock, the only sounds in the station were the quiet murmurs of the tourists' voices and the occasional echo of footsteps over the concrete platforms.

A glance up at the clock told me it had just passed one o'clock in the morning. Gideon and Fabian were due in the station in twenty minutes with the Muggle parents of a Hogwarts third-year. I twiddled my thumbs nervously and contemplated a cup of espresso and Paxton's obituary.

A voice at the coffee counter jerked me out of my reverie. "Oh how quiet, quiet the world can be," Sirius said, propping his chin on his fist. "You look bored. Care to sell me some coffee?"

"Would you like the turpentine with sugar, or the wet paint with cream?"

Sirius grinned. I noticed that his eyes were as bloodshot as mine from lack of sleep. "Double shot espresso with cream and French vanilla. I still can't take that stuff straight."

I tutted and swung my legs off the counter. "Weakling. What are you, some Brit who only drinks tea?"

Sirius yawned. "One in the morning and quick on the draw as ever. You amaze me."

"And you're charming as always." I finished pouring his cup of coffee and began mixing in the vanilla and cream. I lowered my voice. "What did you really come here to tell me?"

Sirius snorted. "Well, believe it or not, I actually am knackered. But anyway, two things. One, James sends his regards from the Gringotts garbage bin- " he slipped me a folded piece of parchment, which I hastily pocketed to read later - "and two: Han's just started passing these around. Here's yours." Sirius pushed a silver one-pound piece across the counter with his payment for the coffee and lowered his voice to a whisper. A tiny portion of the rim was red. "Less obvious replacements for the rings we were using before, and Muggle to go with our disguises. They vibrate whenever someone's trying to send a message, so - " he stifled a yawn - "I reckon we'll be hearing from Gideon and Fabian soon." He glanced down at my buttoned shirt and gave his chin a little tap with his index finger. "And if I were you, I'd keep it right between my knockers."

I rolled my eyes. "Glad you can appreciate my cleavage even under these strained circumstances." I punched the cash register and handed Sirius his cup. "Sound advice, thanks."

Sirius grinned roguishly. "Cheers, Lily." And with that he ambled back to his post.

I sank back into my chair once he'd gone and watched the station again from behind my newspaper. I was beginning to get nervous; the Muggle night watchman had just picked up the telephone, even though a telephone call at this hour was extremely rare. The observation booth in which he held his post was perched on the end of a crosswalk one flight above the platforms, and though it was too far away to allow me to see his face clearly, I did notice him pause after hanging up. Then, to my dismay, he picked up a megaphone and stepped out onto the crosswalk.

"All present track laborers, please report to the terminal."

A sleeping businessman jolted on his bench and sat up, glancing blearily about the station; the tourists fell silent and looked up from their map. I saw Sirius turn his head in my direction. I fingered the coin in my palm.

"All present track laborers," the watchman repeated, "please report to the terminal."

A moment later there came a sound of footsteps. Squinting, I could make out the shapes of four workmen walking into the terminal, two of them carrying what looked like tool cases. In a moment they were gathered wearily beneath the watchman's post. The watchman cleared his throat and put the megaphone down, wiping his hands nervously on his trousers. "Do us a favor and check the rails here, lads," he said. "Make sure the crossties are secure."

One of the workmen gestured towards the tracks. "We replaced 'em last week, Jim. They're brand new."

The watchman was visibly squirming now. "Apparently there was a problem with them a few miles north of here, so please, just run the check. There's another team being deployed to examine the rest of the track right this moment, and the three-thirty train's still on schedule to arrive here on the dot. So kindly get on it."

"Well, what the bloody hell happened?"

"The one-thirty train's just gone off the bloody rail, that's what happened!" The watchman's voice was high. "It's probably a smoldering wreck, so stop this rubbish and check the bloody crossties, will you?"

Immediately the workmen scattered. All four of them were climbing down onto the tracks and switching on the lamps at the fronts of their hardhats. I scanned the rest of the station for my colleagues; I wasn't sure if any of them had heard the conversation. Exhaling, I gave my coin a quick scratch, held it to my lips, and whispered, "Reports of an accident on the North Line. One-thirty train is off the track, cause unknown. Prewetts, please come in."

The others made almost no sign that they'd received the message, but I did see Han casually hitch up his sleeve. A moment later the watchman had picked up his megaphone again and was clearing his throat to speak.

"May I have your attention, please," he said, evidently struggling to keep his voice even. "Due to a recent rail accident, the one-thirty northbound train will not be arriving in King's Cross Station tonight. All passengers for the one-thirty northbound train, please arrange for an alternative. The two-thirty northbound train has been diverted to Waterloo and will not be stopping here. However, the three-thirty eastbound is scheduled to arrive as usual. You may be able to pick up the northbound route if you take the eastbound to Portsmouth and transfer there. Further information can be obtained at the information desk at the end of Platform One. We…apologize for the inconvenience, and hope that none of your loved ones were riding the one-thirty train at the time of the accident. Thank you, and Godspeed to you all."

My stomach clenched. The coin in my hand buzzed and immediately I turned it over to read.

_Everything's on schedule. Saw the train derail, it was a couple of Death Eaters. They Disapparated laughing without tracking us so suspect it was just a night raid, Aurors on it now. Stay focused. Will be there soon._

I held my breath for what seemed like an eternity. I wasn't sure if it was a trick of the light or if the shadows on the face of the clock were twisting slowly, forming fang-like shapes that made me wonder if I was losing my grip. Time passed like a slow-moving nightmare, the tick of each passing minute echoing through the near-empty terminal more menacingly than the last.

Then - suddenly, finally - there was a small flash of light at the end of the platform. The Prewetts had arrived.

_Make sure nobody's following us, _buzzed the coin. _One of you please come with us. 9 3/4. Everything's fine. _

I stood up behind the coffee counter, glancing around at my shift mates. Seeing their subtle nods, I hid my wand up my sleeve and quietly left my kiosk. Straightening my beret, I broke into a light jog, checked to make sure nobody was following me, and ran through the barrier to Platform 9 3/4.

Gideon and Fabian Prewett were standing close beside a middle-aged couple and their young, light-haired daughter. The parents' faces were utterly white, and the little girl was clutching her mother's coat, burying her face in it.

"Ah, Lily. Fantastic," Fabian nodded, gesturing for me to come closer. "This is Linda and David Crane, and their lovely little lass Diane. We're going to be taking them to Paris tonight."

"If you're moving us," said David tightly, "then where are you taking our older daughter?"

"She's staying at Hogwarts for now," Gideon said, gripping David's shoulder soothingly. "She's safer there than anywhere else. Professor Dumbledore has her under a very close watch. Nobody's going to be able to lay a finger on her."

"Yeah, it's you lot who need to get the hell out of dodge," Fabian said, checking his watch. "Train should be here soon. Lily, wand at the ready for when we get on, yeah?"

"Absolutely."

With a strangled little sob, Linda clutched her daughter and began to cry. Feeling a lump rise in my throat, I put my arm around her. "Shh, everything will be all right," I whispered. "Don't worry. We've got a safe house waiting for you in Paris, it's well-protected and the bad guys don't know it exists. We'll bring your daughter there when she finishes the term. She'll be safe."

Covering her mouth, Linda only cried harder.

"I want you to bring our daughter with us now," David hissed. "You can't bloody well smuggle us out of the country and leave our kid in the middle of a war zone, I don't know what you - "

"Mr. Crane," I cut in, so sharply that he started, "you don't want your Muggle-born daughter leaving Albus Dumbledore's sight. Trust us on that. He is the only wizard the Dark Lord is afraid of. Hogwarts is practically impenetrable. _You _are the ones in danger."

At that moment there came a whistle, a roar of engines, the sudden illumination of a headlight, and a long hiss. A wall of warm air rushed into the terminal as the deep blue locomotive - which we had affectionately dubbed the Phoenix Express - pulled into the station, releasing a thick mist of steam as it chugged to a halt. In its brightly lit windows were the silhouettes of other passengers, refugees picked up earlier from the northern regions of the country - witches, wizards, and Muggles alike.

"All aboard!" Fabian said loudly. "Mrs. Crane, ladies first!"

I raised my wand, scanning the station for intruders as the Cranes hurriedly boarded the train, the Prewetts close on their heels.

"Keep an eye out, Lily!" Fabian shouted as the engines began to huff. "Make sure the barrier seals!" And then, with a blast of steam and an ear-splitting whistle, the train sped away from the platform and vanished into blackness. All was silent.

Once I was sure that there was no errant steam leaking back into the station from the vanished train, I turned on my heel and strode to the opposite end of the platform, holding my wand high as I cast a memory-erasing charm over the entire station in case there had been any spies lurking in the shadows. Then, with one final sweep of my wand, I sent a jet of blue light flying down the length of the tracks. The sparks landed with dull finality between the crossties fifty feet beyond the train's vanishing point.

Satisfied that the Phoenix Express would not be discovered tonight, I turned and crossed the barrier into King's Cross, where I went back to the coffee kiosk and slumped into my chair.

_Everything all right? _came Sirius's message.

I raised the coin to my lips. _Yeah. Fine. _

_I'm crawling out of my skin over here. Entertain me, will you please? _

I snorted. _Come see me and I'll sell you another coffee. _

_I just got wind that three of our people were injured on the train that derailed._

The chatter of thoughts in the back of my mind seemed to go silent. I looked up and saw Sirius walking toward me, looking somber, his shoulders hunched. _  
_

I stumbled home at 4:15 that morning, numb and sleepless. I shoved a fresh stack of paper into my typewriter and collapsed at my desk.

x.x.x.x.x.x

The summer passed slowly after the move, and the days blurred together, hot, pollen-dusted and smelling of brine. The debris of change lay scattered about between the temporary arrangements of tables, chairs, bookshelves, and lamps; brown cardboard boxes and crumpled newspaper made up the landscape of our house for much of July and August. Shadows wandered across the undecorated walls in a slow ballet, dappled with spots of pale gold sun in the mornings and shot through with the silhouettes of the trees and boxes by the windows in the evenings. The solitude was palpable, it seemed, there to absorb whatever noise I made and whisper it back to me as I walked between our half-unpacked possessions each morning, my footsteps creaking softly over the wooden floors.

The house seemed packed with latent possibilities during the hours before my family awoke. We had an attic as well as a basement—more space than I'd imagined could exist within any house. Most alluring, though, was the open road that led out of our neighborhood and ran along the seashore, winding away into the morning mist as it curved towards the north and banking closer to my grandparents' house as it wound towards the south, snaking into the distance over long stretches of low, sandy beach and jutting, rocky cliffs. It was on this road that I habitually met the playmates who would later hold the ladder for me as I climbed into our attic at seven o'clock in the morning to look for ghosts: Edwin and Noah O'Neill.

Our parents made it a point to get my sister and me out of the house when they were unpacking. "We're taking a load of glass and fragile things out of their boxes now, and we don't want you girls around to trip on them and cut yourselves," Dad said one morning as he shooed us out the front door. "Go out and play, but don't wander too far." I'm sure that I never would have made a habit of meeting Edwin and Noah on that road if our parents hadn't always insisted on keeping Petunia and me out of the way while the house was being removed from storage; this was how I ended up walking along beside Petunia on one particularly humid morning, skipping rocks along the pavement.

The sun had just risen into a clear sky, breathing a pale gold-orange glow onto the mists scattered between the rocks and cliffs. It was early enough not to be uncomfortably hot, and the road was so empty of cars and pedestrians that an ant probably could have crossed it without risk of being stepped on. As for me, I was enjoying myself; I had made up my mind to explore the area as soon as the moving van had pulled away from our house, and being kicked out of the house at the break of dawn presented the perfect opportunity to do so. Petunia, however, didn't like the idea of leaving our front porch in the absence of an adult, but she couldn't do very much but follow me—she was afraid she'd be punished if she let me out of her sight.

"I don't think we should go much further," she said as we approached a rocky outcropping that swept out over the surf. "Mum and Dad won't like it."

"We're not going that far," I replied, focusing my energy on walking on the curb. I wobbled slightly, then put my arms out for balance. "Why doesn't it help to stick your arms out?"

"Of course it helps. You're just not doing it right."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I dare you to do it yourself, then," I said, putting my hands on my hips.

"I won't. It's dangerous."

This, incidentally, was the moment Edwin chose to crash the scene. In retrospect, I suppose I should have heard him coming; there was never anything subtle about his step or the way he carried himself—wherever Edwin O'Neill went, a battery of energy and noise followed. His eyes were alert, slightly cocky, and constantly scanning for some new form of excitement; his shoes were perpetually untied; and his ankles were always smudged with dirt where the soles of his sneakers had scraped across his skin as he walked, jumped, or ran. Watching him move, you'd almost expect him to break everything he touched; and though that rarely ever seemed to be the case, you could always tell where he'd been. There would be a fresh smear of charcoal, a smudged fingerprint, or perhaps a twig or chess piece out of place, for he was the sort of boy you saw traces of wherever you looked, even—especially, I should say—in his absence.

"Hi," he said, ignoring Petunia. "I saw your grandparents the other day. They were on the beach."

"Oh. Yeah, they walk a lot."

"Crazy old people," Edwin said, picking up a pebble from the side of the road and skipping it along the pavement as I had just been doing. It bounced twice before skittering off the shoulder and disappearing into the weedy gravel beside the curb, scattering a few other pebbles as it went. "I think they're nuts."

I picked up a pebble of my own and skipped it in Edwin's direction. "Just because you walk doesn't mean you're nuts."

"Edwin, are you supposed to be here?" Petunia demanded. "Are your parents letting you walk out here this early in the morning?"

"They're not even awake yet."

"Fine, it won't be my fault if you get in trouble."

Edwin made a noise of disgust. "Your sister's nosy, Lily."

"I know, she loves to come into my room at five o'clock in the morning and ruin all the stuff on my desk—"

Petunia's cheeks reddened. "I do not, Lily. Mum wants me to check on you, that's all—"

"I told her what you were doing," I said, rolling my eyes, "and she thinks you're being nosy too."

"She does not!" Her voice was higher than usual now. "And besides, you're always up making noise, so someone has to make sure you won't burn the house down!"

I raised one leg and held it up behind me, stretching my arms forward to maintain my balance, and rolled my eyes again. "You're dumb, Petunia."

"You're younger. And dumber."

"Yeah, well," I said, adjusting my arms, "Mum and Dad decided to have me because you were too dumb for them, so shut up and go away, please."

I don't know which reaction I was expecting; I didn't think that what I'd said was any worse than what I usually said to Petunia when she got aggressive, so I was surprised when she simply stood there, working her jaw to zero avail. It was a moment before I noticed that her lip was trembling.

"Forget it," she shot back after another few seconds' delay. "You're impossible, and I'm not the one who's responsible for you. And if you get either of us hurt, or even killed," she added, jabbing a finger in my face, "Mum and Dad will just have to deal with it!" With that, she turned on her heel and stormed off down the road, disappearing around the bend that led to our house.

Edwin looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "She's crazy."

I swallowed. "I think she was just born that way." Then I made a face. "She's always doing things like that."

"Yeah, probably," Edwin agreed. "Come on, let's go find my brother. He's looking for rocks on the beach."

x.x.x.x.x.x

We did indeed find Noah O'Neill on the beach, but he wasn't looking for rocks; rather, he was down on all fours, digging in the wet sand by the tide line. Unlike his brother, he didn't have any dirt smeared across his cheek or ankles, but his hair was wiry from collecting ocean spray all morning; though he and Edwin were identical twins, Noah's face was more deeply freckled, and, somehow, his hands were more slender and his skin more delicate, almost as if he had less of a penchant than his brother for getting mud under his fingernails. He wore an intent look on his face now, chewing his lower lip in concentration as he scraped at the sand with the tips of his fingers. Edwin and I came to a stop in front of him and peered down at the pit he'd dug; something smooth and white was protruding from the ground.

"What's that?" Edwin asked, squatting beside his brother. "Looks like a seashell."

"I think it's a conch," Noah replied, still focused intently on the task of unearthing the object. "Dad showed me one with spikes like that."

"Why don't you use your foot to push it out of the sand?"

"No, don't do that! You'll break it, jeez."

"I always use a shovel when things are that hard to dig up," I said, tapping the shell. "I could go back to my house and get one."

Noah looked up at me, his eyes meeting mine briefly; then he dropped his gaze again. "It's okay, I think I can get it out like this."

It took us the better part of an hour to dig up the conch, or whatever it was—by time we'd finished, the sun had burned away the last of the morning's mist and was beating uncomfortably on our backs. Rubbing the sand from his hands, Noah reached into the pit and lifted out a large spiral seashell, which he turned over in his hands for us to examine.

"Look at that," Edwin said, pointing to the opening on the underside of the shell. "I think there's something living in it…"

I nearly fell into the hole as I craned my neck to see what they were talking about, and I had to get down on my hands and knees to keep my balance. In any case, my efforts were rewarded when Noah suddenly recoiled and dropped the conch right in front of me, where it landed with a dull thud in the sand. Something wet and brown was squirming slowly at the opening, a flat, slimy-looking thing that smelled vaguely like spoiled fish. After a moment its head emerged, slug-like and whiskered, stalk eyes bulging. With a small yelp I jumped back and wiped my hands on my shorts, even though I hadn't touched it.

"It's still alive," Edwin said in a low voice, his eyes wide. "It's moving…"

"I think it's dying," Noah said in horror. "Look what it's doing." He picked up a small piece of driftwood and poked tentatively at it. The animal twitched at the sensation, writhed slowly about its shell a few more times, and then lay still, its foot drooping limply.

"Get it some water," I suggested. "Maybe it can't breathe…fish out of water can't breathe either…"

"Can we get it out of the shell?" Edwin asked, still staring at it in awe.

"I don't know," I said. "I think it's attached to the inside."

Silent, Noah poked the animal's flesh again. It didn't move.

"Dead," he said after a time. His voice carried a note of amazement and dismay. "It's dead."

I didn't know what to say, so I looked up at Edwin; he didn't seem to know what to say either.

"Are you sure?" I asked hesitantly. "Maybe it just went to sleep instead."

"No, it's dead," Noah replied, still prodding at the snail with his piece of driftwood. "This would wake it up if it were asleep." And with that he sat back and drew a knee up to his body, resting his chin against it as he stared down into the pit of sand. A wave washed up on shore and pooled around the snail, spreading a thin layer of foam over its foot before disappearing.

"How did you find it, anyway?" Edwin asked, breaking the silence.

"I saw the shell sticking out of the sand."

I fidgeted uneasily with my shorts. "I don't think we should bury it again."

Noah gave me a look of puzzlement. "Why not?"

"Because then it's like we never found it."

"Yeah," Edwin piped up. "We should keep it. Or mark the spot so we can find it again later."

Now Noah looked incredulous. "It's going to rot," he said emphatically. "It's going to rot and stuff is going to come out of the sand and eat it. Remember the bird we found on the road? Like that. That's what it's going to be like."

"Let's just mark the spot, then." Edwin began pushing handfuls of wet sand over the snail until he'd built a small mound, cracked where the sand hadn't stuck together and imprinted with the shape of his hands. He picked up the piece of driftwood Noah had used to poke the snail's body and drew a large X over the pile. "See?" he said, sitting back after a moment. "At least now we know we found it. Conches are rare. You can't find them anywhere but on a few beaches in the world, anyway."

Noah didn't respond; he only gazed towards the surf. The three of us sat there in silence for a long while. Finally Edwin got to his feet and retraced the X with his toe. "There. That should last a while."

Noah and I exchanged glances as a fresh wave swept over our feet and wiped the last trace of our little grave into the surf in one smooth stroke. When I turned to gaze ahead once again, Edwin was running ahead of us - though not without gesturing for us to follow.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I stopped typing and pushed my chair back from my desk. The typewriter continued to sit expectantly before me; it was nearly dawn and I still hadn't finished the obituary. The half-written draft lay derelict atop a pile of tax returns, words scrawled haplessly up and down the parchment where I had tried in vain to come up with something bearing even a shred of perspective.

James's roses sat wilting in their vase on the other side of the typewriter, their petals dry and curling. In a haze of exhaustion I carried them into the kitchen, where I pared off the rotten tips of their stems with a knife and replaced the water in the vase.

On the other side of the window, the world was still dark. The ticking of the kitchen clock made my skin crawl.

I went back to my bedroom and curled up under the covers with a draft of Paxton's obituary and not a lot of hope of finishing it.

_6:23 AM_

_It's about that time of the morning again—the printing presses will be rolling in a few minutes. Am expecting the train wreck to hit the papers in about twenty-four hours' time with a likely alibi. We'll see if they blame it on a drunken conductor. _

_I am on the precipice. I am staring down at a pit of invisible monsters. _

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Author's note: **July 2011 - And so continues the editing. I think this chapter needed it the most, honestly. The changes from hereon out should be pretty minor (I think this was the only chapter it'd be helpful to reread anyway), so unless y'all feel like rereading the WHOLE STORY (I think I'd skip it, personally), there's really no need for that.

Thanks for reading, as usual. Hope you enjoyed!

- Silverspinner


	4. O Writer, My Writer

**Author's Note:** I didn't think I'd actually write another chapter to this story, and I think I even informally said so. But it always seems that as soon as I say I'm not going to do something, I end up doing it. So here it is - with no accompanying rewrites this time. Crazy, isn't it?

**- Chapter 3: O Writer, My Writer -**

It was unseasonably warm when my day off arrived. The streets were a soup of slush and melted snow; people brought out their de-icers only to find that the locks on their cars actually weren't frozen. The air temperature remained solidly above freezing and the Order paused momentarily in its obsession with atmosphere and climate control charms. We threw open the windows in the mail room and breathed much-welcomed fresh air; we swapped our heavy cloaks for lighter ones. Hestia even waltzed around the mail room watering our resident plants, which seemed to be having a growth spurt. It was lovely - except for the fog.

My head was intensely foggy with sleep deprivation by the time I was allowed to take my leave. The last thing I needed was to be surrounded with fog, because now I got lost in two ways instead of one: First I would lose my train of thought and stand stupidly in the road, wondering what I was doing there and why my skull felt pumped full of molasses; then I would look around and realize that I hadn't the faintest idea where I was or where I was going. This was hardly unusual for me, though, so I didn't worry much about it when it happened. I simply smiled at the grandness of having gone through several weeks of exhaustion and emotional turmoil, for which the reward was incoherent giddiness and a day off to celebrate 1) the fact that I was not dead, and 2) the fact that missing James for so long had borne its fruit, because now I could see him again.

The problem with seeing James, however, was that I always managed to choke at the sight of him. He was beautiful, with strong shoulders and a lovely tapering waist that put smug thoughts in my head: He is a piece of art, and only I am allowed to see him naked. He was also, I kept discovering, eminently better than I was at sleeping during the ungodly hours of the morning, which made him infuriatingly well-adjusted - at least when compared with me. The fact that he seemed so in-control, so calm, and so well-rested made me feel stupid, angry, and altogether incompetent. And this just made him look all the more beautiful.

Such was the condition of James Potter when we finally got to see one another. He was sitting on my bed with his coat and socks off, black hair falling over his forehead. He was rifling through the sheets of paper I'd taken off the typewriter while I fidgeted restlessly with a loose thread on my pillow case. I got up several times and puttered about my closet while he continued to read, but found nothing to clean or put away; I went into my cramped and dingy little kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets. I brushed my teeth and rinsed three times. Finally I lay down on the bed and curled up next to James, resting my head in his lap.

At last he was done. "…When I turned to gaze ahead once again, Edwin was running ahead of us, though not without gesturing for us to follow." James put the manuscript down and gave me a hard look. "_This_ is what you're doing at six in the morning?"

Immediately my stomach constricted. "_This_ is what we're going to spend our time off together arguing about?"

A look of pain flickered on James's face. "Well - no." He sighed. "It's just - you need to sleep, Lily. I mean seriously."

"I know, I know. I just can't. I'm an insomniac."

"You need to find a way to make it happen."

"I'm trying!"

"No, you're not. You're drowning yourself in your misery and refusing to sleep so you'll have an excuse to keep drowning yourself. And wax nostalgic about the past again."

"What! No I'm not, what is your problem?"

"I don't have a - listen, Lily, you work at a dangerous job and you keep staying up at night. You're a really good writer, but seriously, you can't do this. Okay?"

"James. Don't be an asshole, I'll do what I have to do in order to sleep! If that means I'm up all night with insomnia, then fine, better I do something useful with the time."

"Lily - "

"What about 'stop' do you not understand!"

Now James got that pained look on his face again and gathered me up in his arms, making hushing sounds. "Shh, Lily, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm just telling you the truth. Please." He cupped my face gently in his hands, tilting my chin up; a hot flush spread over my cheeks, and I avoided his eyes. To my consternation and chagrin, tears flooded onto my cheeks and I began sniffling pathetically, wetting James's shirt.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I'm being unreasonable. I just never get to see you. And I've been all depressive lately. Having a hard time shaking it."

"Shh, shh, don't cry," James whispered. "I'm here now. And we'll get to see each other again soon." He kissed my cheek and rocked me gently, which only made me bawl harder. "Shh. It's okay."

"If you say so." I sniffled and fought to control of myself. "Sorry. I'm being ridiculous."

James kissed me again. His body was slightly tense. "Yeah, you are."

I pulled away and wiped my eyes. "How embarrassing."

"Promise me you'll actually sleep now."

"Sure."

"I mean it. I'm not going to talk to you about your writing or the Order or the weather until morning. And I'm not going fuck you until you've slept for at least eight hours."

That felt like a slap. I laughed a little disbelievingly. "Aren't you supposed to be a hot-blooded caveman or something? I'm an available female." I batted my eyes at him, then sniffled again. And swallowed a nose full of runny mucus.

James's shoulders slumped a bit, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Breathed. Then looked up and smiled. "Stop messing with me, Lily," he said gently. "Why don't you take off all those clothes and get in bed? I'll join you after I'm showered and don't smell like a goat."

"You don't smell like a goat," I said thickly. He was stripping off his shirt and trousers. The hint of muscles rippling over his lean frame was catching the light of my floor lamp with almost pornographic deliciousness. He looked at me quizzically.

"Sorry," I said, for the third time. "I'm just enjoying the view. Are you going to toss off in the shower?"

He gave me a supercilious look and took off his boxers. Then he threw his dirty clothes into the laundry basket and helped himself to one of my freshly washed towels. "And so what if I do? I'll last longer in the morning."

"Touche." The absurdity of my predicament was rising so insistently in my throat that I almost wanted to kill myself. I laughed. "I'm going to remember this forever: 'The day James Potter cock-blocked himself.'"

"I love you too. Now shut up and go to sleep." And with that he turned and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him with absurd finality. My head was foggy with fatigue and frustration, and suddenly it hurt quite a bit; unable to think of anything else to do, I rolled over and laughed silently into my pillow. And then smelled fresh lavender on my sheets, just as I'd intended. I was so relieved not to be smelling dust and weeks-old sweat that I began to weep again. Blinded by tears and aching with the choke of laughter, I stripped off my clothes, tossed them into the laundry basket, and collapsed onto the bed. One yank of the sheets and I was in the dark, asleep.

I woke briefly to the soft rustle of blankets as James slid into the bed with me, his skin soft and still damp from the shower. I was conscious long enough to feel his hand move over my hips, over my belly and the cusp of my breast. I felt his chest pressed against my back, his lips on my shoulder; and then all was black, all was silent and soft.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Sunlight was streaming through the curtains when I awoke. I was still curled up beneath a pile of blankets, and groggy; now that I'd succumbed to the urge to sleep for more than half an hour at a time, I didn't want to wake up. Ever. "What time is it?"

James stirred behind me, pulling me more tightly against him. "Eleven AM. You outdid yourself. That was twelve hours right there."

I buried my face in the covers to block out the light. "Really? Damn."

"I've been reading your memoir from start to finish for the past hour. You're really obsessed with death, aren't you?"

"What? Not at all. I am Lily. I am loquaciously loftily loony. I love writing shit that sounds deep."

"Ludicrously loopy liar. How bad is your morning breath?"

"Lovingly lethal."

"Mm. I'll bet." James threw a leg over my belly and climbed on top of me, resting his weight against my pelvis. He pushed my hair gently out of my eyes and kissed me. "Glad to have you back."

"Was I gone?"

James kissed me again, this time with lust. He was already hard. "You were acting like a crazy lady who raided pharmacies at night and ate their toothpaste instead of sleeping like normal people. Do you mind if we spend the next six hours fucking?"

His hand squeezing my breast was delicious. I lifted my hips against him and ran my hands down his back, gripping his buttocks. "Let's do the honors. Indulge me."

x.x.x.x.x.x

"Okay, so let me get this straight," James said, his mouth full of roast beef sandwich. He swallowed. "You're writing an obituary for Jonathan Paxton, which you say you don't want to do, and you're doing it because Hestia Jones, who - if I may remind you - was at Hogwarts known as 'The Pastry Girl' and whom you out-classed at her own game, says you should."

"Er. Well. When you put it that way."

"I'm just trying to figure things out here, my ridiculously sexy nymph. Forest nymph, I mean."

"James!"

He cocked an eyebrow at me, looking mischievous. "Sorry," he grinned. "It's just that you were naked all afternoon. And now you're feeding me. I couldn't feel more manly if I tried." He took another huge bite of his sandwich and gulped it down with amazing fortitude. "I'll act civilized now. And I won't say anything about you bending over and letting me eat lemon meringue pie off your bum."

"Right. Not a word."

"Yes ma'am."

We were sitting across from one another at the small wooden dining table in my kitchen, with an impressive amount of food piled up between us. The place looked much cheerier with the lights on - I had to give James credit for pointing that out - and was equipped with surprisingly good cookware. It made the whole business of talking about obituary writing seem much less important, and I had to admit that I felt a bit foolish with him grinning across the table at me the way he was.

"Right, so," I said. "Yes. I'm writing the obituary for Jonathan Paxton because Hestia Jones asked me to. I guess whoever's been writing them is taking a vacation. Or got reamed out by the Death Eaters for saying something they didn't like. Or something."

"And you don't want to do it?"

I stared at the sandwich in my hands for a moment. I still hadn't bitten into it. A piece of tomato was falling out, dripping juice and mayonnaise onto my plate. "It's just difficult. I mean I don't know the guy from a hole in the wall. Which is a silly thing to whine about, I guess, because they just handed over a whole bunch of records and research and said, 'Hey, you could write this thing in half an hour if you're quick about it, no sweat'. And there was a noticeable lack of volunteers for the task. So I feel kind of obligated."

James gave me an odd look. "Why?"

"I don't know. But anyway. I'm writing it." I bit into my sandwich and relished the taste of fresh tomato and beef. I'd been glamorously living on noodles and broccoli for the past three weeks, and I wondered as I chewed whether I was going crazy partly out of diet-induced anemia. "It's a weird task. At least I knew Alice's family when I wrote their eulogy. I feel like this time I'm dissecting a corpse."

"How appetizing."

I opened my mouth to quip about James suddenly becoming squeamish, but the look on his face made me stop. "So how is everything? At Gringotts, I mean."

James grimaced. "Fantastic, of course." He took a swig of water, seeming to wash down a bit of bile. "I still haven't seen any action the way you people in the train stations and alleys do. But I did see a few rotting bodies and a mutilated goblin this week."

I had been about to swallow, but that gave me pause and I spent a moment trying not to choke. "Really. How did that happen?"

"Someone broke into Gringotts about a week ago, tried to steal a piece of cursed jewelry, I think. I guess the Death Eaters managed to head them off in the middle of it, because we'd been searching for the bodies for days. I was the lucky bloke who stepped on someone's collapsing face. And the guy who got to dispose of the whole scene, seeing how I'm, you know, at the bottom of the food chain and all that."

"You're sure the fact that your family is insanely rich couldn't get you a slightly nicer job?" I asked, and immediately felt ashamed at having suggested it. "I mean, this isn't to say you should try to bribe your way up, but you'd have to work pretty hard to come up with a reason why someone like you should be a janitor. They're just wasting you on a job like that."

James laughed harshly. "No, I volunteered for that job. Everyone in the Order would have been wasted on it. I took the position because they needed someone to do it, and I have enough money that I can afford to do it for free - and it's not like I've been doing it that long; it's only been two months. I'm planning on quitting as soon as they finish training this crop of Aurors. I'll be able to get under someone's wing easily. I just have to wait it out until they've got space to take me on as an apprentice."

"…Oh." I found myself staring open-mouthed at him. "Why didn't you tell me you'd volunteered?"

James smiled. "Because you would have freaked out and told me not to do it."

"Well, who's crazy now? Shit, James. I stay up all night writing about my childhood, you stay up all night searching for dead bodies. Voluntarily."

"Yeah, you can bet I'm foaming at the mouth just thinking about a tube of toothpaste when I find a pile of putrefying human lying about in a small, enclosed area. Breathing the smell and getting it in all in your mouth really makes you appreciate toothpaste. And toothbrushes."

The image was nauseating and brazenly, improperly, almost comical. I shuddered, all the while hating myself for thinking I might want to laugh. James regarded me curiously, seeming to await my response. I decided on a half-laugh, half-grimace. "And to think I sometimes forget how much chutzpah you have."

"Hence the reminders, Lily-tron. Now you'll always know who's got the biggest balls of them all. Without ever having to check."

"My knight in shining armor."

"That is my God-given purpose in life," James said, grinning stupidly at me. "I love you, Lily."

I grinned back and passed him another sandwich, which he happily took. "I love you too, James."

But even with the expression of unadulterated contentment on his face, something darker and not so cheery lingered. It was not self-pity - I hadn't seen that on James for several years - but it clearly weighed on him. A look of carefully contained somberness. Of responsibility, perhaps.

x.x.x.x.x

James and I had only the following night off before we had to return to our respective shifts, so in the evening we decided to take a short trip out of London, to a remote wooded area neither of us could locate on a map. We didn't know if the place was named; we didn't know if it was even in Britain. But it was beautiful, a snowy landscape of hills, evergreens, and rocky gorges. There was a waterfall, about forty feet high and frozen over now, near a clearing we frequented on our days off. In our jeans and snow boots we walked over the icy rocks at its base, slipping, falling, laughing as we tried to catch one another. James, who had more strength and superior balance, was better at it than I. "I keep having to make a point of not planting my face on these rocks," he laughed, holding me up by my armpits as I slipped and skidded. "You're too impatient to get to where you're going, you have to quit jumping around."

"I'm not jumping around," I giggled, brushing hair and snow out of my eyes. "I am just lacking the proper zen."

"I like how you imply that I'm filled with zen." He nuzzled the back of my neck.

"You know I exist purely to stroke your ego." I kissed him and didn't pull away until I slipped again and nearly sent us crashing onto a large pile of rocks.

And that was how we spent the evening - walking through the snowy woods, tripping in the snowbanks, breaking icicles off the trees and sucking the water off them; when the sun set, James Transfigured a rock into a lantern, which we took turns carrying as we wended our way through a forest of rich, thick evergreen boughs. Eventually we grew cold and stopped in a small clearing, where I brushed a pit into the snow and lit a fire. James and I stood before it, warming our hands and feet as steam rose from our sodden clothes.

"Try that thing you did once, when you got it to change shape."

I concentrated and flicked my wand at the flames. Something resembling a fish flickered into sight. I squinted and flicked my wand again; the fish's tail fin only grew broader. "That was supposed to be a bird, but I guess a fish is good enough."

"I'll take it," James yawned. "It's warm and it dances."

"That'll be fun to write into my memoir, the time we tried to dance in the dormitories that ended with me somersaulting over the back of one of the armchairs."

"That was hot," James said. "Your shirt rode up about a mile. And I hadn't known until then that you were that flexible."

"Can't argue with the truth, I guess."

"You know what I love about this," James mused, "it's the fact that it's been two hours and neither of us has mentioned work."

"Jinx."

"Savoring the sanity, you mean."

I laughed ruefully. "Or the rest of the world is crazy and we're mad. Either way, we'll never know."

"Lily," James said, giving me a wisftul smile, "look up. The stars are out. This is why I like to come out here with you. You can look up at the sky and see the stars through. And if you bother to look long enough, you'll even see them twinkle."

I looked up. It wasn't just the stars that were out - it was the entire Milky Way, visible as a faint, pearly stripe of violet and blue, half-hidden by the trees. I closed my eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply, drinking in the scent of winter and pine. "I have a confession," I said after a time. "I feel incredibly stupid when we're out here."

"Why is that?"

"Because it's like the paint job in my brain suddenly changes when you're around and we're away from all the death and fighting, and my sense of irony disappears."

There was a beat of silence, and James simply continued to look up at the sky. Then he exhaled, his breath a cloud of steam dispersing into the night, and put his arm around me. "Well," he said, pressing his lips against my forehead, "I'm glad to be of service. Because being with you does make me very happy."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Going back to work really was like having a different mental paint job. The mail room was in a drab state as usual when I got there the following morning, with loose parchment and envelopes cluttering up almost all of the visible desk space. A freezing rain had begun to fall an hour earlier, so that now the windows were in the process of glazing over with an inch of solid ice; all of the owl windows had been shut for the morning, with the owls themselves grudgingly perched on a slightly dizzying array of pegs on the wall. Hestia Jones was in her usual spot, looking pale and a bit run-down, and mindlessly waving her wand to and fro over a stack of letters. Each time the tip of her wand moved to her right, a letter slid into an envelope, which then addressed itself. Hestia had the look of someone who had been doing this for several mind-numbing hours already. There were two empty coffee cups on her desk, where she ordinarily kept her writing supplies.

"Anything you want me to take off your hands?" I asked.

My question seemed to have broken her trance, and she started a little before looking up. "Oh, Lily," she said, as if she'd completely forgotten I was supposed to be there. "Hi. Yes, if you could take a stack of these and deal with them, that'd be lovely."

Wordlessly, I did as she requested and sat down at a desk next to hers. "Where are these going?"

"Blue seals mean Department of Mysteries," Hestia said. "Red are for the Wizengamot. Actually, I put a charm on all of these that'll tell you where the letters are going, if you tap the seals and look pretty."

I nodded and sighed inwardly. I thought about experimenting with a few different charms for addressing the letters more efficiently and even considered making a suggestion to Hestia, but thought better of it. Her voice had a slight edge to it, as if she'd stop being polite as soon as I stepped a bit sideways and landed on her toes. "So what happened with the train that went off the rails?" I asked carefully. "I was off-shift when they were investigating, and I haven't heard anything over the past day."

"Ah, so you were sleeping," Hestia said, a bit testily. "I was wondering if you'd ever get to that. Anyway, yes, I was on duty with the group they sent out to survey the accident. A whole bloody night of walking over wrecked cargo. And Muggle-proofing the scene. It took us until six in the morning to wipe their memories and get them out of there."

"Was anyone hurt?"

"There were a few injuries. Nothing serious, as the conductor appeared to have realized there was a problem in time and hit the emergency brakes before they went careening over the wrecked tracks at eighty miles per hour. Horrific amount of monetary losses, though. That train was supplying half the apothecaries in Wizarding Britain. All that cargo - spilled all over the place, soaked into the dirt. Millions of Galleons. Disastrous."

My stomach sank. The Order of the Phoenix consumed a huge amount of potions and potion ingredients provided by the local apothecaries each month - with our rate of injuries due to hexes, curses, and confrontations with the Death Eaters, we were second only to St. Mungo's and the potions classes of Hogwarts. "Do you think we're going to have a supply shortage?"

"You should hope to Merlin not," Hestia said, smiling mirthlessly.

"I do," I said uselessly. "Is there anything else you want me to take care of today? You look like you could use a break."

"Write that obituary." Hestia's smile hadn't changed. "His father sent an owl this morning asking for it."

"…Ah."

"Make it good, too," Hestia added, a note of irony in her voice. "You could make a nice bundle on it if Paxton Senior is pleased."

Something about her voice sounded barbed, and, feeling defensive, I finished addressing her letters with a swift flick of my wand. She started and looked at me. "How did you do that?"

"Modified sorting charm, I think," I said, clearing my throat. "Right. Obituary. I'll get to it right now."

Hestia only regarded me strangely.

x.x.x.x.x

I spent the rest of the shift working on the obituary - that is to say, I spent the rest of the shift sifting through the mess of documents Hestia had provided me, struggling to think of a workable angle from which to tell Paxton's story. The clock ticked relentlessly through the morning and early afternoon, seeming to crush itself into the spaces between my ears and brain with each twitch of its hands. After about an hour of this, I began to feel claustrophobic, so I got up and paced along the wall where the owls were perching; but this only heightened my anxiety, so I sat back down and stared at the blank parchment before me. Disparate thoughts skittered across my mind. How could we know the monetary value of a person's soul? Was I supposed to hide Paxton's alcoholism and bring him off as a saint? Surely I should refrain from writing about his support for the Order of the Phoenix and risk getting his father killed - but didn't the fact that the request for an obituary had landed on my desk imply that he wanted someone from the Order, who knew about his son's contributions, to write about him? Which newspaper would publish the obituary? Oh, Paxton had been so young. Too young to die. Too stupid to know not to drink himself to death - or too helpless to overcome his alcoholism. An empty suit. Riding the shirttails of a railroad tycoon. Living the high life, drunkenly threatening to kill a taxi driver, drunkenly destroying millions of Galleons' worth of talking marble sculptures at a five hundred thousand Galleon house party. Drowning in his own vomit. Everything hushed up. Until now?

I didn't understand him. How could I possibly know him from his medical records?

Eventually I got up the nerve to ask Hestia for her opinion.

"You don't have to know him," she answered impatiently. "Nobody reading his obituary is going to know him. Of course his father doesn't want you to make him sound like a drunken fuck head…sorry, excuse me." She paused to sip from her coffee mug, blushing a little. "All I'm saying, Lily, is that the point of an obituary isn't to bare the ugly truth to the public, it's to notify them about the person's death and provide them with a bit of backstory. All you really have to do is write a short biography of him. Who he was, what he did, some vague nonsense about how he died. Make him sound like a good guy. Remember him fondly. You know. That sort of thing."

"It's going to be a security risk to his father if I mention anything Paxton did that was good," I said flatly.

Hestia's eyes flashed. But then she smiled. "So don't be specific about it. Just say he was a philanthropist. Generous bloke."

I considered this; she was right. I shrugged my concession.

"Oh, come on, Lily," Hestia said irritably. "You wrote a eulogy when you were seventeen. You went parading around Hogwarts with half a book's worth of who knows what you were writing practically every day. You were also at the top of your class. Stop acting stupid. Just write the bloody obituary. You know what to do."

I was silent for a moment, stunned. "When did I parade anything?"

Hestia looked at me as if I were crazy; for a moment I thought she was going to yell at me for deliberately being thick. But then her expression softened. She turned away. "I'm sorry. I'm just in a bad mood. And you were always winning writing awards at Hogwarts. I just didn't expect you to have any trouble with this, that's all."

I blinked. "What writing awards? I wrote an advertisement for Honeydukes once. They took it because they liked the jingle I came up with. And the parchment rolls you saw me carrying around were probably all essays for class."

Hestia blushed and refused to meet my gaze. "Lily, kindly shut up, all right? I'm sorry I got snappy with you."

"It's fine," I said quickly. "Thanks for the advice." With that, I went back to staring at my parchment. And failed utterly to come up with a single worthwhile sentence.

x.x.x.x.x

Writing the melodrama into death is easy to do. You choose your favorite set of overblown metaphors, be they filled with the love of birds, sunsets, or over-described fallen leaves, and then you think about something depressing, to the point where you are convinced that you yourself want to die, and begin writing about death as if you can count yourself amongst the bereaved - regardless of whether you are bereaved or not. You do not spare a single moving detail, and the details that aren't moving, you either exclude completely, or describe with such maudlinness that the mere presence of the words fools you into thinking you should be moved. And then, if you find that you can't stomach the descriptions you've produced, you trim them down until you can read them without gagging.

I spent several more hours wrestling with myself over how not to do this to Jonathan J. Paxton. I couldn't tell if I loved him or hated him, or even if I was indifferent. The emotion of writing blocked all judgment from my mind, until I was finally so fed up that I scrawled the following in roughly eight minutes:

_Jonathan J. Paxton Born January 18, 1952 Deceased February 19, 1979_

_It has been said by some that Jonathan J. Paxton was the face of the Gwydion Railroad; indeed, he was often his father's ambassador. An educated, literary man, he charmed many and entertained many more, leading a life surrounded by Britain's rich and famous. And certainly he was one amongst them: an heir to his father's millions, Jonathan Paxton could have chosen to live on the Riviera and never look back._

_But he did not. In a time when our country is wracked with conflict and bloodshed, Paxton supported peace. He was an avid philanthropist. His many donations to numerous and admirable causes will always be remembered by all of us who carry the mantle of peace. May he live on in our hearts and memories._

x.x.x.x.x

"Thank you," Hestia said, as I handed her the piece of parchment. "Right on time for the next shift, too. Nice work."

"Thanks," I replied. I had a massive headache. "I guess I'm going to get a move on. Can't be late."

"Good luck."

The obituary was published the following day. I read it from my usual spot in the train station, behind the coffee counter, to the sound of the late-night trains coming, going, roaring white-hot and billowing from out of the dark.

x.x.x.x.x.x

**Author's Note:** First, I want to apologize for making it sound (three years ago) like I wasn't going to take a three year hiatus from this story. I never really wanted to abandon it, but the truth is that I hadn't the faintest idea where any of it was going - and I was drowning in math homework. Such is the life of an engineering student. Oh well. Graduation has its perks. Like time to come back and write again for the fun of it. :)

I may soon be too busy again to update. But until then, I'm going to have some fun with this. For what it's worth, I hope you guys have enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.


	5. Ark

**- Chapter 4: Ark -**

February was a slow month for low-level shift workers such as myself in the Order of the Phoenix. We had all the usual problems - too few people; too little money; too little time. But for the inexperienced and green-gilled people like me, business at Headquarters was business as usual: Wake up, show up for your sentry shift, and blow the whistle if you were still awake by the time anything noteworthy had happened. It was the trained Aurors, Charm-Breakers, assassins, spies, and Healers who dealt with the real trouble, and God bless them, they were all too noble to let infants of my type do much of the heavy lifting. We were their children.

Every one of us knew, of course, that we would be spared less and less as more and more of them were killed. Some of us dealt with this better than others. James seemed to have steeled himself for the day when he would be sent out to replace an Auror or an assassin, and appeared not to see the possibility of dying as a point of contention or relevance; I, on the other hand, didn't want to die. I imagined myself in confrontations with Death Eaters and striking killing blows before they had the time to hurt me. I imagined killing out of terror of being killed and shuddered at the floods of adrenaline the thought of homicide pumped into my bloodstream - and then I imagined freezing, right there on the spot, not knowing what to do or how to do it; I imagined wasting precious seconds fumbling for my wand, being bound and gagged, being lashed with curses from behind because I was simply too preoccupied to watch my back. And I believed that this, if I was going to die at the hands of a Death Eater, was how I would inevitably do it. The thought made my heart race and my mind cloud over with bright lights, like the aura before a migraine or an epileptic seizure. I did not want to die.

As the month of February dragged on, so the poetry drained out of the idea of death. Perhaps it was the boredom of sitting in the train station every night, when a year ago I'd slept the nights in my dormitory at Hogwarts; perhaps it was the novelty of defying the Dark Lord wearing thin. Perhaps it was the fact that I saw daylight for less than ten minutes per day, or the fact that I hadn't written home to my parents in months - or the fact that I had graduated from Hogwarts nearly as sheltered as I had been when I'd entered, and had not yet adjusted to life in the Order of the Phoenix. Rarely did it occur to me that depression and a general inability to cope were the natural consequence of a sleepless and borderline pointless lifestyle. I had only been defying the Dark Lord for six months.

I was walking home from my night shift at King's Cross on one particularly cold, damp night when Alice Pearce - soon to be Alice Longbottom - cornered me at an intersection, footfalls slapping the wet pavement as she ran to catch up with me. "Lily!" she shouted. "Hold up!"

I turned around, wondering what would possess her to yell my name at four in the morning when there were quite possibly Death Eaters at large. She was waving a limp piece of parchment in one hand, the other holding her coat closed. Strands of wet blonde hair were slipping loose from the ribbon at the nape of her neck. "You look like you're afraid someone's going to jump you," she panted, slowing down as she came up beside me.

"I am afraid someone's going to jump me," I replied, galled by the way she was speaking - as if there wasn't a soul around to hear her. "Do you have to say that so loudly?"

"Relax, Lily, I put a Scrambling Charm on my lipstick. Everyone who hears me talking thinks I'm just whistling a tune - except you and a couple of others inside my honorary circle. Walk with me and delight the world with your whistling, too." She patted my hand and pressed a tube of pale mauve lipstick into my palm. "Gryffindor's honor. I am not sick."

"How did I fall in with this brilliant crowd," I said stupidly.

Alice smiled and kissed me on the cheek. "Great minds think alike. Now try to giggle as if you're tipsy and walking home from a bar. A drop of this stuff might help you," she added, holding out a small amethyst flask. "Drink it, it tastes like chamomile and honey."

"What is that?"

"Open up." Alice held the flask to my lips and tipped it forward; I opened my mouth and swallowed for fear she'd spill the stuff down my robes and set them on fire.

I gulped. It really was soothing; immediately a warm glow began spreading down my throat and into the pit of my stomach. I felt my muscles relax. I laughed a little. "Which potion is that? I don't remember making anything like it at Hogwarts."

"Relaxing potion, obviously," Alice said with a quirk of a smile. "Originally intended for use before bed, but when I stopped being able to walk around without chewing a hole in my side, I started taking it. Makes you much less conspicuous, too. Death Eaters are always watching for someone who looks like they're afraid of being followed."

"It doesn't cut into your alertness?"

"Not that I've noticed. But then again, I feel so much better on this stuff than off it that I really can't say. I just know I haven't gotten killed yet."

"Some of us Apparate everywhere," I said bemusedly. "Why don't we?"

Alice giggled. "Last time I checked it was because you were afraid of splinching yourself - you were too tired to make sure you Apparated the right way. Or some bung like that." For some reason she seemed to find this unbearably funny; she giggled harder and clutched my shoulder for support. "There's no reason to walk around at all. We're stupid, Lily."

"Stretching out, getting some circulation going after eight hours of watching a train platform, yeah. Pretty stupid," I agreed.

"Besides. Who in the world would care if a pair of giggling girls were out and about in Soho?"

"Not a person in their right mind."

"Now you underst - " Suddenly she stopped and drew her wand. "Wait." She grabbed my shoulder. "Did you hear that?"

I glanced around and stood poised for ambush, scanning the empty streets for signs of motion. She was right; something was whooshing through the air, perhaps twenty or thirty feet above us. Adrenaline began to course through my veins. I drew my wand. "Sounds like something flying. Definitely not Muggle."

Alice's gaze had sharpened, her eyes glinting now with the expectation of violence. "Let's get behind those dumpsters. Now."

"We don't have time, get _down!"_ I shouted, throwing Alice to the ground as a black, freezing wind came rushing over our heads. "Dementors," I panted. A deep, chilling despair was prickling through my skin, into the pit of my stomach. "Mouth to the ground, mouth to the ground, don't let them grab your face -"

"Get off me!" Alice shrieked, kicking the Dementor gripping her leg with one slimy, rotting hand. My whole body, however, was crushed beneath it. It was as if my arms were freezing, disappearing utterly; I could neither feel nor move my wand hand. "Don't - you - come - near me!" Bucking violently, Alice smashed her foot into the creature's head, causing it to rattle and hiss with terrifying voracity. Its hands crept up her body, claws ripping her coat. _"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"_ Alice screamed, her feet still crashing down on the Dementor's skull. Her boots came away covered in putrid slime. _"EXPECTO -"_

A silver bear erupted from the tip of her wand and reared up on its hind legs, swinging its paws mightily. It opened its jaws in a silent roar, causing the Dementor to recoil. A burning sensation burst over my arms and torso as the Dementor flew away, hissing and rattling as it went; immediately I snatched my wand and scrambled to my feet. My head was spinning with nausea and despair. "Over there," I gasped, pointing. Alice's Patronus was fading. "Take cover. More of them coming, go!"

Alice threw herself behind a row of garbage bins and crouched behind them, wand at the ready. I leaped behind an adjacent dumpster and pointed my wand at the sky. _"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"_

This time it was a silver doe that cantered forward, meeting the Dementors head-on; there was a brief flash of light, and then they scattered. I collapsed against the dumpster, shaking.

Several feet away from me, Alice bent over and retched. "Bloody - fuck," she said, gagging. "Let's not ever - ever - do that again."

I got up and put my hand on her back. "Are you all right?"

Alice retched again, then spat. "Fine," she said, still looking nauseated. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Ugh." She spat one more time. "Bloody embarrassing, puking after seeing a Dementor. A full year of Auror apprenticeship and this is the first time it happens to me."

"Most people wouldn't be alive to puke after wrestling a Dementor like that. I think you're probably okay."

"Have you got any chocolate?"

I nodded and handed her the chocolate frog in my pocket.

"Brilliant. Thanks." Alice unwrapped it and broke it in half. "Here, you take the rest. Want the card?"

"Dumbledore? Sure, I'll take another one of him." "Be nice if there were another of him to liven things up at Headquarters," Alice said shakily, wiping sweat from her forehead. "That was way too close. Good thinking having a chocolate frog in your pocket, though. I ate mine after a run-in with these fuckers yesterday afternoon and forgot to replace it."

"I heard about that. What mission were you on, though?"

"We were bringing a couple of Death Eaters to Azkaban," Alice replied. "Always a risky business. You know, because the Dark Lord is at large and everything, and the Dementors have been multiplying all around the prison periphery. We've got loads of our own people in there too. The Dark Lord put them there, and the Minister of Magic hasn't done anything about it because he doesn't want to provoke any more trouble. Anyway, the Dementors are out of control. You go to Azkaban knowing you're going to have to put up a fight, no matter whose side you're on."

A cold feeling began to twist in my stomach again, even though there were no Dementors nearby. "We don't see much of that sort of thing where I am," I said. "I've seen a lot of fishy activity and Stunned quite a few people, but that really seems like nothing next to what you're doing."

"Yeah, well, you sort of sign up for that when you become an Auror." Alice smiled blandly. "Anyway, if you really want to get yourself mauled, nobody's stopping you from quitting sentry work and signing up to be an Auror. Or a spy. You've done your time in the Order - we've got greener people than you now."

I pursed my lips. Alice had graduated in the same year that I had.

"We should either get home now or go back to Headquarters and spend the night," she said, breaking my trance. "I might just sleep on a couch next to Moody's office. The last thing I need after a scare like this one is to wake up at seven to the sight of more Dementors swooping through my window."

I considered the gravity of her statement for a moment, and then decided that Alice probably had the right idea. "Would you kill me if I had a light on while you slept?"

Alice managed a grin. "If it means you're keeping watch, then absolutely not."

I sighed. "I'm a sentry, that's what I do best. Let's go. And let's Apparate this time."

x.x.x.x.x.x

The floor in the common room at Headquarters was hard as a rock, of course - which was just as well, because as soon as I wanted to sleep, I'd be out and that would be it; but until then, I'd be largely disinclined to lie down, which was helpful in staying up for most of the night. At any rate, the common room was quiet, but hardly empty; there were always a handful of people hanging around Headquarters at any given hour. Among them were the early risers who would show up at five in the morning to work on a lead or review a case, and the night owls coming and going from various missions and shifts.

There was a misplaced-looking aloe plant sitting in the corner of the common room, between two windows through which there streamed a dim gray light. It was not enough to write by, but I took up next to the aloe plant anyway and snapped off the tip of one of its leaves. Mechanically, I squeezed the piece of leaf until the sap came out, then rubbed it down my arms, onto the bridge of my nose, under my eyes. The sap was sticky, but soothing to the cuts I'd gotten during the night's confrontation. I regretted the decision to sleep a headquarters and wished James were with me, so naturally - once I had found myself a roll of parchment and a quill - I passed the lonely hours of the morning scrawling more memories from childhood.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"You're never going to get that ark to sail."

Noah, squatting in the sand, didn't look up. "Yes I will. It's wood, wood floats."

"Not if you don't give it a crew," Edwin said doubtfully. "You have to give it a crew."

"It's too small to have a crew," Noah said, carefully tying his three pieces of driftwood together with a string of seaweed. "There isn't even a deck."

"It has to be big enough to carry something," I said. "It's an ark. And your _name_ is Noah."

A wave crashed ashore in and swept over our feet, wetting our shorts. It caught Noah's seaweed and tugged it loose, dragging a piece of driftwood with it; with a shriek, Noah leapt into the surf and splashed after it, tripping on himself and skidding into the water on his belly. "Come back here, you stupid piece of wood!"

"Rahh!" Edwin yelled, running into the surf after his brother. "The storm is coming! It's going to wipe out all the animals!" And then he threw himself face-first into the water, kicking up a splash of mud and water. "The monsters are coming! Roarrrr!"

Figuring that it was best to leave the boys to battling the flood, I squatted on my haunches and began digging through the sand, looking for animals to put on Noah's ark. Wet sand smashed its way under my fingernails, into the creases of my palms, between my toes. Small pebbles and bits of broken shell scraped against my skin; I rinsed my hands repeatedly to keep them clean, but found only that this made the sand stick to me more eagerly.

After a time I found a cluster of small clams buried in the sand. Eagerly, I grabbed my plastic shovel and began to dig them up, scattering sand and clam shells everywhere. "Hey!" I shouted. "Hey, I found something!"

Immediately Edwin and Noah came splashing back to shore. Edwin kicked sand over the hole I'd dug as he came to a halt. "Is it a lobster?"

"Clams!" I said enthusiastically. "Their shells are open! We can put them on the ark!"

Noah nodded and rubbed his chin. "We'll have to tie them down," he declared, "or they'll fall off." And with that he picked up the bucket of clams, sloshing most of the water over the edge in the process, and immediately began tying them onto his bundle of driftwood with the seaweed. "These knots are really tight," he said, "but they might slip."

"Make them tighter," Edwin said. "Double knot them!"

Noah obeyed. One of the clams shot out from beneath the seaweed knot and landed in the water with a small plunk, whereupon the tide promptly carried it away. Noah frowned. "If the knots are too tight, the clams fall out."

"Then you didn't tie them tight enough," Edwin said impatiently. "Let me do it."

"No! My _name_ is Noah. _I_ know how to get the animals on the ark."

"Noah didn't save all the animals by _himself,"_ Edwin said scornfully.

With that, they set about fastening the clams to the driftwood, bickering. After several minutes of this they declared the ark ready to sail. "Here," Edwin said, holding the driftwood out for me to examine. It was a mess of knotted seaweed with perhaps one or two clams successfully attached. "We made seat belts for the animals in case the ark sinks. That way they'll be safe," he added with a grin, "and can take over the world!" He jumped up and began spinning in circles, laughing, and then ran into the surf. He bent over and put the driftwood down on the surface of the water, where it immediately began to bob with the waves; and then he jumped up again and came running back to shore, still laughing.

And this was how our ark sailed. Within a few minutes, it was gone.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Petunia was the one who answered when I rang the doorbell, panting and gleeful, still covered with sand. "God, what have you been _doing,"_ she said, her nose pinched in disgust. "Why don't you ever listen to Mum and not get the house all dirty?"

"I'm not getting the house all dirty."

"Yes you are. And you need a bath. Come on, I'm going to give you one."

I shrieked and yanked my arm away from her. "I don't need _you_ to give me a bath!"

Suddenly Petunia looked hurt, as if I'd hit her. "I'm just trying to take care of you."

I was stunned. Petunia? Take care of me? All she ever seemed to want to do was ruin my fun. And now I'd hurt her feelings because I didn't want her giving me a bath?

Not knowing what else to say, I stuck out my tongue and gave her the meanest look I could muster. "I don't care. I can take a bath myself." Then I whirled and stomped off toward the bathroom.

It wasn't until I was sullenly sitting in a tub full of half-spent bubble bath and lukewarm water that I heard Petunia crying to our mother. They must have been right next to her bedroom door, which was directly across the hall; I could hear everything they were saying.

"Now, Petunia, calm down. Lily's just young. I appreciate you trying to help me keep the house clean. That was very nice of you. But don't let her upset you so much."

"But - she just yanked her hand away," Petunia hiccuped. "And then she stuck out her tongue at me! She was trying to be mean!"

"Okay, I'll have a talk with her in a little while. But you need to calm down, Petunia. You're the older sister, and it's your job to set a good example for Lily. Do you understand?"

I heard Petunia sniffle. "She just needs to _grow up_ already!"

"Your sister is only five, dear. She's not going to act like she's your age, because she isn't. She'll grow out of this someday. But until then, you need to be nice to her, because if you aren't, she's going to hate you by time she's a teenager. You two could be the best of friends if you wanted to. But I'm telling you, Petunia, it's your job not to pick fights, because Lily isn't as mature as you are."

"She's not mature at _all."_

"That's because she's only five," Mum said patiently. "Can you do the right thing and be patient with her?"

A sniffle. Silence. Then: "Well, you're just going to have to go to your room and not come out again until you're ready to be nice. And when you are ready, I expect you to apologize to Lily. In you go."

"But that's not _fair,_ I - "

"No more funny business, young lady!" Mum snapped. "You know the rules. Now stay in your room until you're ready to act mature again, or you'll be sorry you ever picked on your sister. I mean it." At this Petunia made a loud huffing noise, and then the door slammed shut.

A moment later there came a knock on the bathroom door. "Lily? Can I come in?"

I froze. I was afraid Mum was going to yell at me.

"Lily?"

"What?" I demanded.

"Can I come in?"

I didn't want her to come in and see me naked in the bathtub, but I was afraid to say no. "Okay," I said meekly.

The door creaked open and Mum stepped softly inside. She came and knelt beside me, resting her forearms on the edge of the tub. Her hair was pulled back in a loose bun, with strands of it falling loose about her face. She had golden hair and green eyes, just like mine; I thought she was beautiful. I drew my knees up to my chest and hugged them, refusing to look at her.

"Lily," she said softly. "Why did you stick your tongue out at your sister?"

I was silent for a moment. Then, grudgingly, I said, "Because she was being stupid and bossy."

"Now, Lily, that's no way to talk about your sister. You wouldn't like it if she talked that way about you, would you?"

"She _does_ talk that way about me," I said angrily. "I heard her. She called me immature and mean."

"That's because your sister was very upset by what you did today. Just because she was upset doesn't mean she's allowed to be bossy or mean, and I told her that. But if you want her to be nice to you, you also have to be nice to her. Do you understand?"

I scowled. "Yes."

"Okay. Now when you finish your bath, I expect you to tell Petunia you're sorry for sticking your tongue out at her."

I rolled my eyes. "She won't listen."

"Yes, she will. And you will tell her you're sorry. I don't care if you don't want to."

The look in Mum's eyes scared me. I shrank in the tub, pulling my knees closer to my chest. "What if I don't do it?"

Mum glared at me. "Then I'll punish you, and you'll be very, very sorry, young lady."

I cowered; I felt as if my insides were shriveling. "I'll say I'm sorry."

At this Mum's glare softened, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. That's the right thing to do. Now you just finish your bath, get dressed, and go talk to your sister." She got up and left, closing the door softly behind her; I went limp as soon as I heard it click shut, wondering what terrible things my mother would do to me if I didn't listen to her. I couldn't imagine a punishment awful enough to match her terrifying glare. Would she take my favorite stuffed animal and stab it? Would she spank me? I was too afraid to ask.

Just then I heard my father come into the hallway, sounding as if he were carrying something heavy. "You talk to the girls, Laurel?"

Mum sighed. "Yeah, they're good and scared now."

"You always made a better disciplinarian than I did."

There was some shuffling, then a bump and the creak of a door. "Yeah, well, there are about a million things I'd rather be doing than terrorizing the kids. I hate doing that. They're ordinarily so good."

"What if they weren't, though?"

Mum laughed, not sounding amused at all. "That wouldn't happen, because I'd whip them in line so fast it'd make their heads spin."

"Magic touch, eh."

"What's the point of having kids if you're not going to raise them?"

Something heavy thudded to the floor. "Duly noted, darling. I trust your judgment. Now, where did you say you wanted to hang those still-lifes, again?"

x.x.x.x.x.x

I woke up to the sound of multiple people traipsing into the common room, boots squeaking on the shoe mats by the entrance. I had apparently fallen asleep with my head against the base of the aloe plant's pot; my neck ached terribly and my eyes felt as if they were going to bleed. Pieces of parchment were strewn across my lap, the tip of my quill lying in large spot of dried ink. The ink bottle had been sitting uncorked beside me for several hours.

The sound of approaching footfalls grew louder, and I started. Not wanting to appear to have gone completely loony, I gathered up my materials and stuffed them into my pockets. I worried momentarily that I might be committed to St. Mungo's for appearing emotionally disturbed, but then Kingsley Shacklebolt and Remus Lupin strode right up to where I was sitting and greeted me.

"Well, hello, Lily," Kingsley said, smiling. "How are you?"

"Yeah, would you like some coffee?" Remus asked, giving me an odd look. "You've apparently had a busy night."

I stared at them in confusion for a moment; my mind was cloudy and I couldn't seem to marshall the correct words. A moment later I managed something that might have been a grin. "Yeah, busy," I said, ruffling my hair in the hopes that it would help me clear my head. "Thought I'd stay here after an incident with a couple of Dementors. Seemed safer than going home to a flat surrounded by Muggle tenants."

"Yes, Alice told us about it," Remus said. He seemed agitated. "Tell me again why you two chose to walk home in the middle of the night when there were Dementors flying around?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but Kingsley cut me off. "Plenty of us still walk the streets at night, Remus. Sometimes it's less conspicuous than Apparating. It depends on the area."

Remus's mouth twitched, but when Kingsley put a calm hand on his shoulder, he didn't say anything. "Right," he said after a moment. Then he thrust out his hand and held it out to me. I took it and he helped me up. "Good morning, Lily. There are a good handful of people in the breakfast room. Care to join us?"

Still confused, I brushed my clothes off, straightened my robes. They were stained with dried mud and salt. "Sure. I'd love to."

The breakfast room was surprisingly busy for such an early hour. Indeed, there was a long table covered with breakfast foods - toast, eggs, apples, oranges, pastries, coffee, milk, juice - and many of my shift mates were there, milling about and talking in low, business-like tones. Alice was in the corner with Frank, holding out her wrists as if she were showing him something, and he was murmuring something I couldn't make out. He looked a bit disheveled, but otherwise reasonably awake. Alice, on the other hand, looked as if she was in a foul mood. Frank pulled her into an embrace and she put her arms around his shoulders, rolling her eyes.

"Lily," came a voice from behind me. "Well hi. What brings you here?"

Startled, I rounded on the owner of the voice. To my embarrassment, it was James. His hair was standing up as usual, and he was peering at me amusedly over a mug of coffee. "James," I said. "Wow. Hi."

"You look like you did when you still hated me."

I shivered. "I do? I'm sorry - it's just been a long night."

James nodded and offered me his mug, which I gratefully accepted. "Yeah, I can tell," he said. "I mean, Alice was telling everyone she could find this morning about the Dementors, but you don't look well. Are you all right?"

I stared down at my boots for a moment. They were as dirty as the rest of me. "Yeah, I'll live."

"Come here."

I stepped forward and allowed James to fold me into a hug, letting myself lean on him. I buried my face in his shoulder and inhaled the scent of relatively fresh laundry and that subtle, slightly intoxicating odor that was so specifically James. "How are you doing?" I asked, my voice muffled against his neck.

"I'm okay. I got to stop at home for a few hours and clean up. But cat napping off-duty helps too."

I laughed. "I'm sure."

"You should try it sometime."

"Right. I will."

James released me and looked at me searchingly for a moment. Then he smiled and tapped the tip of my nose with his finger. "Okay."

I smiled back and said nothing, letting my hands rest lightly on his waist - and it was right then that we were approached by Kingsley Shacklebolt and Alastor Moody, both of them holding plates of scrambled eggs and toast, Moody looking as grizzled as ever. "Potter," he said. "A word, if you don't mind."

James glanced at me, then at Kingsley and Moody. He nodded uncertainly. "Sure."

"When are you going to quit doing that janitorial shit?" Moody asked.

For a split second, James looked surprised - but then he shrugged. "Whenever you can take me on." He helped himself to a piece of toast from the breakfast table and began chewing it. I realized a moment later that he had done this purely for effect. "I hear you guys are pretty busy with apprentices right now, stretched thin and all that."

I looked uncertainly at Kingsley. He returned my gaze and nodded as if to say, You can stay if you want.

"Good," Moody said. He stabbed a forkful of egg and proceeded to shovel it into his mouth. "Because I gotta be honest with you, Potter, you're too smart to be in the tunnels stepping over bodies and dusting rocks eight hours a day. I don't know why you signed up for that job anyway."

"They just needed somebody to do it, sir," James said nonchalantly. "I have a strong stomach."

I nearly choked on my coffee. _After you almost hurled on my kitchen table talking about dead bodies?_

"That's good too. You're gonna need that," Moody said through another mouthful of scrambled egg. "Now I know you don't want to be conspicuous or anything and get your family in trouble. That's noble. And we've got too many apprentices right now to take you on officially. But if you want to tag along with the Aurors and learn how to do the Death Eaters some serious damage, I'll pull a couple of strings and get you on an assignment in two days. I know you've been waiting. Sound like a good offer?"

James blinked - was this for effect too? "Yeah," he said, running his hand through his hair. "Yeah, that'd be great."

"All right then," Moody nodded. He crammed the last of his toast into his mouth and chewed fiercely. "You're on then. Come by my office first thing after your first shift today and I'll tell you what you're going to do." And with that, Moody stumped away, limping.

"What happened to his leg?" I muttered.

"Smashed by a flying anvil," Kingsley said. "He was in a duel last week - Mulciber, I believe - there were a lot of flying objects involved. I didn't think the people at St. Mungo's would be able to get him walking again."

"Ah." I was at a loss.

A beat of silence. Then James spoke up. "So that's it," he said, squinting after Moody with a critical glint in his eye. "I'm in, then."

Kingsley nodded. "So it would seem."

"Am I going to have a chance to practice dueling or anything before I go out into the field?"

Kingsley laughed. "Alastor will have you dueling all day for the next three weeks. He'll be merciless, I assure you."

"I'm not going to lie," James said, "that scares me a little."

I only stood there dumbly; the entire room seemed to have ceased to exist. James. Going with the Aurors on high-profile assignments. James, being rewarded for not only his brilliance, but for his apparent shrewdness as well. In all the years I'd known him, I'd never expected him to show himself to be so good at sucking up to authority - good enough that he could actually get results. That was a talent I'd always attributed to the Slytherins - generally, to sleazy people. I had banished from my mind all thought that James was capable of remotely approximating sleazy several years ago.

And then there was the fact that he was ten times more likely to get himself killed with the Aurors than he would if he remained, effectively, a Gringotts guard on trash duty. I imagined James slouching through the tunnels with a huge sack of garbage slung over his shoulder and a Santa hat on his head, ho-ho-ho-ing as he pointed his wand at every broken-skulled goblin in his path and blew it up.

"Lily," James said, jerking me out of my reverie. "You should eat something."

I nodded wordlessly and took a pastry from the table. I bit into it. It had raspberry filling.

James tilted his head. "Are you okay?"

"Don't die, please," I said.

"Have some faith," Kingsley said kindly. "Alastor wouldn't have done what he did if he thought James wouldn't survive."

"Exactly," James grinned. "Come on, Lily, who do you think you're looking at?"

"Does having testicles make you crazy?"

"Enough to go out and kill the woolly mammoth, darling." James kissed me passionately, and then ruffled my hair, still grinning. "Anyway, I'm about to be late, so I'll see you soon." He kissed me again. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." And with that he strode off to greet Remus. They exchanged a few words I could't hear, after which James and Remus slapped hands and shook on it. Then Remus thumped James solidly on the back as they turned to leave. The Marauder swagger had not changed in the slightest.

I put my face in my palm. I felt as though a piece of myself had shriveled up and died.

Kingsley put his hand on my shoulder. "He'll be okay."

"Right. I know."

Kingsley nodded and gave my shoulder a pat. "Yes. Now take care of yourself, Lily."

"You too."

Kingsley turned and left. I gritted my teeth and left, too.

x.x.x.x.x.x

There was already a stack of letters and envelopes waiting on my desk when I arrived in the mail room. Aggravated, I shoved them aside and began to make room for my next pile of sorted letters. That was when I noticed the slip of parchment lying curled on top of the envelopes.

_As you may have heard, your obituary for Jonathan Paxton went over well. As we have not yet heard from the regular obituary writer, I have enclosed a list of names we would like you to research and write about for next week's Prophet. Please notify us immediately if you are unable or unwilling to complete the job._

_Mathilda Hyppolete _  
_Reg Kilkirk _  
_Dionysus Dimple_

_Thank you._

_- Cygna Mallard,_  
_Assistant Editor _  
_The Daily Prophet_

Angrily, I folded the slip into the shape of a boat and stabbed my quill through the center. Cygna Mallard. I was being conscripted by a fucking duck lady who had the gall to walk around calling herself a swan.

"I take it you're going to refuse," Hestia said dryly.

I nearly jumped; I hadn't even noticed that she was there. "No," I said, breathing deeply to slow my heart rate. "I'll do it."

"Oh. Well, you just seemed angry about the note."

"I am," I said sourly. "I don't particularly enjoy writing about dead people."

Suddenly Hestia stood up, knocking her chair back. Her cheeks were flushed; she looked livid. "Then either get over it and shut up, or don't write the bloody obituaries. Because I'll tell you one thing - if you bitch and moan about these as much as you did about Paxton's, I swear I am going to hex you until you have to pull your eardrums out of your arse."

The words hit me like several bricks to the head, but pride kept me angry. I glared at Hestia as coldly as I knew how and flipped her the middle finger. Then I ripped my quill out of its boat and, with a flourish, began writing a template for dozens of obituaries to come.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

**Author's Note:** Hi, all. Thanks for reading. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. This has got to be the quickest update I've come out with since 2002 - and I'm totally not kidding about that. (Don't get used to it, as I'm going to graduate school in about six weeks.)

Thanks to everyone who reviewed my last chapter. It's always fun to hear from you guys. :)

Cheers,

- Silverspinner


	6. Objects at Rest

**- Chapter 5: Objects at Rest -**

I credit my parents' choice of a house near the sea for a piece of my childhood obsession with water. Water fascinated me. One moment it was clear, a color I thought of as transparent gray; the next it was a wild prism of red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet. Water could gather the grit from my hands and pool in stagnant puddles that smelled like week-old sweat. It could sweep ashore like a great silver tongue licking foam from the sand, and then suck itself back into the ocean in a single, smooth hush. It could burst over one hundred thousand year-old crests of rock and crash dizzyingly upon itself a quarter of a mile below, a rapid, rushing thing, a thing that struck terror into my heart and left me intoxicated. I could not fathom anything more inebriating than standing at the foot of a waterfall and marveling at the current's overpowering brawn, could not conceive of anything more terrifying than a hurricane over the ocean. Water drew itself up into funnels and sucked tornadoes straight into the underbelly of the sea. Water smashed over you and left your skull bloodied against rocks you'd thought you were standing on. Water suffocated, water killed. It seeped into your lungs behind blood and infections; it forced itself up your nose, down your throat, deep into your chest, and then - it washed the blood from your wounds, swept the muck and slime of your illness right down the drain.

The smell of ionized water crashing over anything solid gave me a heady feeling - ships of the line, great rocky cliffs and fjords, aircraft carriers, the foot of a lighthouse, anything my grandfather cared to tell me about. It was my grandfather who fed my fantasies about water with his tales of serving in the British Navy. But it was really my own strange, unsettling powers with water that left me so fascinated, at the age of seven, that I nearly caused Petunia a nervous breakdown.

I was leaning raptly against the sink at our grandparents' house one day after school, watching a thin stream of water pour steadily from the faucet. Both my grandparents were busy puttering about the attic, re-organizing items my parents had left there during our move from London. With Grandfather unavailable to take me out digging for seashells or tell me stories, I had grown bored and decided to amuse myself by trying to move water without the use of my hands.

"Turn off the faucet, Lily," Petunia said, coming up behind me. Her voice was edgy. "They've got a water bill, you know. Grandmother and Grandfather have to pay for water."

"But look at what I can make it do," I said, staring at the faucet. I concentrated on something that terrified me utterly - the thought of standing on the hand rails of a bridge a thousand feet off the ground and losing my balance. Feeling the railing slip beneath the soles of my sneakers, feeling my head smash onto the railing as I fell. Plummeting towards earth at ever-increasing speed.

I shuddered and nearly gagged with dizziness and the nausea of falling, and the stream of water pouring gently from the faucet suddenly leapt, twisted in midair - and then exploded, spraying Petunia and myself. I gasped. "Did you see that?" I demanded. "Tuney, I made it explode! Without touching it!" I shuddered again with the thrill of it and went back to gazing intently at the faucet stream.

"That's impossible," Petunia said, her voice faint. _"Objects at rest tend to stay at rest, unless acted upon by an external force."_

"What?"

"It's Newton's Law of Inertia, I learned about it in school today!" Petunia said shrilly. "You didn't touch that water, you can't have made it explode, it must have been a freak accident - "

"No, no, Tuney, look, I'll do it again - "

"No," Petunia interrupted. I turned around and saw that her face had gone sickly pale. "No, don't do it again, I bet it's dangerous, I'll tell mum to take you to the doctor - "

"But I'm not sick!" I insisted, not understanding what Petunia was going on about. "I just thought of something scary, I don't know what happened, I just scared myself and the water exploded! I feel fine, don't tell Mum - "

"You're sick," Petunia whispered, her eyes wide with fear and wonder. "Lily - do you think it's contagious?"

"But I don't feel sick," I said dumbly. "How can I be sick if I feel fine?"

"People get sick all the time and don't realize it," Petunia said, a strange glint in her eye. "You can have cancer and not know it until you're about to die. But not every sickness kills you. Sometimes you're sick and you don't feel it or die from it, ever."

"I think you're crazy."

"Lily," Petunia said seriously, "do you think you could give it to me?"

I stared at her. "You want me to cough on you or something?"

"Yes," Petunia whispered.

I hesitated for a moment, wondering if Petunia could possibly be right. I had a feeling I couldn't explain that told me she wasn't, but she was gazing at me with such urgency and desperation that I felt I couldn't refuse. I thought she might die if I did - and for better or worse, she was my sister. So I nodded. "Okay," I said, "I'll teach you."

"But I don't have your…sickness."

"It's not a sickness," I insisted. "I learned how to do it. Here, it's easy once you get the hang of it."

Hesitantly, Petunia stepped closer to the sink. She looked at me uncertainly.

"You have to think about something that scares you to death," I instructed. "Something _really_ scary. I think about falling off a really high bridge and not being able to stop. And sometimes," I added in a hushed voice, shivering, "about being eaten by monsters."

"Sharks," Petunia nodded, her face still pale. "What else do you have to do?"

"You have to think really hard about being scared. Imagine the sharks eating you."

Petunia shuddered and gripped the edges of the sink.

"Close your eyes," I ordered.

She obeyed. I stared anxiously at the smooth stream of water still pouring into the sink, down the drain. Nothing happened.

"Am I doing it?" Petunia asked through gritted teeth.

She had squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that I could barely make out her eyelashes. Her knuckles were white and her body was so tense that I was filled with the sudden fear that she would break. So I splashed my hand through the stream of water and threw some on the counter, on her clothes. "Yes," I lied. Then I jumped up and splashed some more, convincing myself that she had caused the stream to explode. I laughed delightedly. "Yeah, Tuney, you're doing it!"

Instantly she opened her eyes. Her eyes were alight with relief and happiness; and then she laughed, smiling with a kind of lightness and innocence I had never before seen on her. I jumped up and down some more and clapped my hands to hide my shock. Smiling like that, with her cheeks glowing and rosy, my sister looked beautiful. "I did it!" she exulted, and then - to my even greater surprise - she threw her arms around me and picked me up, swinging me around with such ardor that one of my sandals flew off my foot and went skidding under the table. "Lily, maybe we have special powers!"

"Yeah, maybe," I said, my voice muffled by her shirt. Finally Petunia put me down, still grinning hugely. "Does it get easier with practice?" she asked.

"I don't know," I lied again. "I think you just have to be able to scare yourself."

Petunia laughed. "That's one thing I'm good at!"

At that age, I was still largely unconcerned with the future, and scarcely worried about it beyond what might happen if I did something truly egregious - at least, until that moment in the kitchen with Petunia. "Yeah," I agreed, smiling uneasily. A feeling of dread was creeping in around the corners of my mind: There would come a day when she would no longer be content to close her eyes when she was performing magic.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Though I had been making strange things happen to the water and objects around me for nearly a year already, the incident with Petunia left me feeling unusually unhappy. It was a feeling that built up deep in my chest, a haunted feeling that always made me imagine ghosts drifting through the walls, through the floor, through the bathroom mirror.

"Grandfather," I said as he thumped down the stairs from the attic, "could I use the telephone, please?"

Grandfather peered over the box of wooden carvings he was holding in his arms. "Well, certainly, my dear. Would you like to call your mother?"

"Just a friend," I said meekly.

"Oh, a friend! Yes, absolutely. Give me a moment to fetch your grandmother's phone book, and you can tell me if your friend's name is in it."

"Thank you, Grandfather."

It was Vicky's number that I asked him to find. At first he looked puzzled and asked me when I'd ever played with a girl named Vicky, but when I explained that she had been my neighbor in London, he seemed to comprehend instantly. He dialed for me and then handed me the telephone, which I took with trembling hands. The ring tone made my heart flutter unpleasantly; I thought it sounded like the moan of a ghost living in the telephone lines - a ghost that moaned when it knew you were there.

"Hello?" came a woman's voice. Vicky's mother. I nearly balked.

"This is Lily, Vicky's friend," I squeaked, clutching the telephone. "Is - is she home?"

"Oh, Lily! Yes, Vicky has just come home from school. Here, I'll get her for you. She'll be so happy that you called!"

There was a shuffling sound, then the crackle of breathing into the receiver. Then, faraway and electronic-sounding: "Hello?"

"Hello, Vicky?"

"Yeah?"

"It's Lily."

"Hi, Lily." There was another crackle.

"How was - er. How was school?" I asked, my toes curling uncomfortably.

"Good," Vicky replied. "I'm in Mrs. Whiting's class."

"Oh yeah. I heard she's funny."

"Yeah." Vicky made a noise that sounded like a giggle.

This was slightly encouraging, and I jumped at the opportunity to get a conversation going. "Guess what," I said in a hushed voice, looking furtively at Grandfather. He had politely turned his back and begun to put dry the dishes on the dish rack. "My sister's crazy."

Vicky giggled again, a muffled sound. "Oh, yeah."

"Remember how she used to try to boss us around when Mary was there?"

"Sort of," Vicky replied, seeming to giggle with every word she said.

"I had to tell my sister she had special powers today," I continued, hoping this would draw a response. "I'm - I'm sort of worried about her."

There was a long pause. Then: "Why?"

"…What?" I was dumbfounded. How could Vicky ask why I was worried about Petunia when I'd just told her why I was worried?

Another crackly giggle. "What?"

I stared at the telephone in disbelief. Was she playing some sort of game? After a moment I put the receiver back to my ear and tried again. "I can do this thing with water she can't do," I said. "I can make it explode, but she can't. She really wants to be able to do it, though."

There was a brief shuffling sound, and then Vicky breathing into the receiver again. "My dad needs to use the telephone," she said. I could almost hear the smile in her voice, the stickiness of a blueberry lollipop. "I've got to go, Lily. Talk to you later."

I couldn't believe she was hanging up on me. "Good-bye," I said hurriedly, hoping I could get her to speak for another minute before she left. "Will you give me a ring soon?"

"Uh-huh," Vicky said perkily. "Bye, Lily!"

_Click_.

Wordlessly, I set the telephone back on its rack. I wanted to cry.

"Did you have a nice conversation with your friend, Lily?" Grandfather said over the clatter of the dishes he was now stacking in the cabinet. "How is she getting on?"

"She's fine," I said miserably. "Her dad had to use the phone so she hung up."

"I see," Grandfather nodded. "I'm sure he's a busy man."

"Yeah."

Seeming to sense my distress, Grandfather reached into one of the food cabinets and pulled out a chocolate bar. "Here, would you like some chocolate? I've been saving it for someone special." He winked.

"Okay," I said, looking at the floor. Grandfather unwrapped the chocolate, broke off a piece, and handed it to me. He patted me on the shoulder. "This will cheer you up. Just don't tell your mother, or she'll think I'm spoiling your dinner." He winked again.

I smiled a little. "You're always getting yourself into trouble."

Grandfather laughed, a deep, rich sound that warmed me from the inside. "That's me," he said. "I'm a crazy rascal."

"I wish Vicky called me more often."

"Oh," Grandfather said, wrapping up the rest of the chocolate bar and putting it away, "I'm sure she's just busy. You've been busy, haven't you? With your friends in school and those twins down the street?"

"Yeah," I said doubtfully. "All my school friends think I'm weird, though."

"Oh, bosh!" Grandfather harrumphed, ruffling my hair. "You'll probably meet a load of friends in your lifetime who think people like your sister are weird. You're perfectly normal."

I wondered if Grandfather had ever seen me splashing water about simply by staring at it, or making my glass of water shed sparks all over the table. But if he had, I reasoned to myself, he would have commented. And he had never done anything of the sort, so I finished my chocolate and ran my hands under the faucet to rinse off the bit that had melted onto my fingers.

"Thank you for the chocolate," I said. Rebellion was beginning to stir in my heart. If I was weird, then I would make people like me for it. "Can I go outside for a bit?"

"Yes, you may. I think Petunia went out just a moment ago. Go and find out what she's up to."

At this I grinned. Without another word, I was out the door.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Finding Petunia was easy, as she never ventured far from the house. She was kneeling precariously in the surf about a hundred feet down the beach, moving her hands over the waves as they licked over her feet, seemingly muttering to herself. She had tied her hair into a low ponytail, the ends wet and already stringy from the briny spray, and she had rolled up the legs of her trousers. She was barefoot and her feet were caked with wet sad. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen her allow herself to get this dirty.

"I'm trying to see if I can do that thing with my eyes open," she said, her face rapt with concentration. "But it's hard to tell, because the water keeps splashing when it hits the sand."

"I can't do it without closing my eyes," I lied. "You probably shouldn't waste your time with that."

Petunia looked up at me searchingly. "You think?"

"Yeah," I said, putting my hands on my hips. "It works so much better if you're not looking at it."

Petunia looked uncertain for a moment, but then she seemed to acquiesce. "Okay."

"Want to race me?"

Petunia's eyes widened. "You mean, down the beach?"

"Yeah!"

"I'll get even muddier than I already am, though."

I grinned. "So what? Nobody cares when I get muddy. Except when I leave tracks in the house."

Petunia continued to look at me as if I were crazy for several more moments, but then she stood up and gave me a smug look. "All right, brat, you're on."

I laughed. I had won. "On the count of three," I said, poising myself to run. "One…two…_three!"_

And I was off like a shot, Petunia scrambling through the surf beside me, laughing, yelling at me to stop cheating. She had much longer legs than I did, but she was also far less accustomed to running in a foot and a half of surging water. I overtook her easily, splashing water behind me as I went. "I got your face!" I yelled, cackling. "Last one to the buoy's a rotten egg!"

"Oh no you don't, Lily!" Petunia shrieked, limbs flailing as she tried to catch up with me. "You little cheater!"

"Rotten egg!"

"You little brat!"

"Rotten egg! Rotten egg!" I laughed, throwing myself into the surf as I passed the buoy. I made a huge splash as I went in, catching a mouthful of salt water as the next wave came sloshing over my clothes. Petunia caught up with me a moment later, gasping, and tackled me, landing on the sandbar with a muffled scrape as I slopped my way further into the surf.

"You are _such_ a little brat," Petunia panted.

I giggled. "But you got muddy too."

Petunia let out an exasperated growl and tried to splash me, but I dropped beneath the surface of the water before she could catch me. I came up a moment later, laughing. "Try making the water explode when you're underneath it," I said. "Go on, I dare you!"

Grinning or glaring at me, I wasn't sure which - Petunia pinched her nose shut and dropped beneath the surf. And from that day on - at least, until I went to Hogwarts - we were friends.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"Well," James said, setting the manuscript down on the bed. "I have to give you credit for keeping your immaculate spelling even as you sat in front of me practically injecting yourself with caffeine." He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer, running his hands through my hair.

I closed my eyes and let him kiss my forehead, wishing the night would last forever. "But you have to admit that I make a mean cup of coffee," I murmured. "Do I get points for that too?"

He pulled the covers up around us both and continued to stroke my hair. "Of course."

We had both officially quit our shift work - James to make room for dueling sessions and field assignments with the Aurors, and I to make room for the personal interviews I would have to conduct in order to adequately research the obituaries I had agreed to write. Unofficially, of course, we still reported each morning to Headquarters and spent most of our free time either on sentry duty or helping higher-ranking Order members with secretarial work. The main difference between then and now was that we got the nights off if we so chose - not that it made me any more sensible about my sleeping habits. I had spent almost all of the nights this week at James's flat, as he had a larger bed and a more comfortable bedroom, but despite his incessant prodding, I had failed each day to turn in before two o'clock in the morning.

Now we were snuggled up in bed with mugs of hot cocoa and several bunches of parchment, James with my coffee-stained manuscripts and I with newspaper clippings and research documents concerning Mathilda Hyppolete, Reg Kilkirk, and Dionysus Dimple. My preliminary research was done now, and I was drafting questions I might ask the families and friends of each of the deceased when I went out to interview them this week. So while James read through the highly re-constructed stories of my youth, I outlined - with shameful inadequacy - the stories of other people's youths.

"Wouldn't it be nice if Petunia still felt this way about you," James said, flipping one of my pages.

I gave a non-committal little laugh. "It would be."

"I never knew about Vicky, though. I thought you guys just moved house and that was the end of it. And now you're using her as a plot device - I think. I might still be too thick to fully comprehend the workings of your brain."

"I use her and abuse her," I said lightly.

"Lesbianism. I knew it!"

I swatted James over the head with a newspaper clipping, which only caused him to begin laughing. "I don't like girls who lick you and leave a trail of blue dye down the side of your face," I said, my serious mood betraying me. I began to laugh as well. "And besides, she was blonde. I like brunettes more."

"I love how serious you sound about this."

"Gosh. Now I have no more secrets to keep. Oh, James," I sighed, shuffling my papers, "what _ever_ will you do with me now?"

"Relish the image of you snogging a tall, busty brunette, for starters."

"Good answer. Anyway, can I ask you something - do you know anything about Mathilda Hyppolete that I don't have here?"

"Er," James replied. "She was a brunette?"

I gave him a dirty look; he laughed. "Oh, all right," he said, leaning back against the headboard. His expression became serious again, and he ran his hands thoughtfully through his hair. Then he leaned forward and began studying the documents. "I don't think I really have anything to add to your pile, here. I know she was a pretty good Charm Breaker, and that she was one of Gringotts' best. I never heard of her defying the Dark Lord - openly, at least. Didn't seem like the type who'd do anything that stupid. So you probably won't find anything about her, I don't know, throwing pies at the Death Eaters or anything." James scratched his chin. "But you might consider asking whoever you're going to talk to whether she kept an odd schedule. She might have joined the Order of the Phoenix and just told them not to tell anyone but a few people at the top that she was with us. Lots of people have been doing that."

"Really? How did you find out about them?"

The corner of James's mouth twitched. "My parents have connections?"

"I suppose they must."

"Yeah." He paused. "Actually, they might be able to help you. They could probably give you a decent starting point for some of the people you're going to write about."

I considered this for a moment. He was right, of course. But I had never spoken to James's parents before, much less met them. Surely he'd written to them when we were in school to let them know that I existed, but what on Earth had he told them? Was I supposed to just show up at their doorstep and ask to speak to them about dead people - _Hello, I'm Lily, I've been sleeping with your son for more than a year, would you mind chatting with me about this dead person so I can feed my pretense of actually knowing what the hell I'm writing about?_

James smirked, seeming to sense my hesitation. "Oh, come on, Lily. You knew you were going to have to meet them at some point."

I blushed. "That's not what I'm worried about," I said, only half-truthfully. "I'm just - don't you think this is a slightly awkward way of making first impressions?"

James laughed. "You don't _really_ believe I just neglected to tell them about you, do you?"

"Well…er…"

"Darling, they raised _me_," James replied, as if this explained everything. "They practically _adopted_ Sirius. They put up with me and Sirius and Remus and Peter for _years_. They'll love you no matter what the dinner conversation is." He grinned impishly.

"Well, when you put it that way," I said wryly. "All right then. If your parents are free and willing to speak to me about any of these people, I will gladly accept their help. But only if you take the time off to meet my parents, too."

Now James groaned. "Doesn't your sister already want me skewered and burned at the stake?"

"Don't take it personally. She hates me too, remember?"

"Which makes me a permanent wastrel, because I'm attached to you. And because I can do funny things with a wand."

"Exactly. Ain't it grand?"

James sighed and buried his face in my hair. "Do I have to meet your sister at the same time I meet your parents?"

"No," I murmured, gently stroking his cheek. "Petunia doesn't live at home anymore, so that should be pretty simple to arrange."

"Thank you." James's voice was muffled.

"She really bothers you this much, though?"

"She wouldn't," James said, pulling me close to him. "But she's your sister, which means I want her as my sister-in-law whether I like her or not." He gave an ironic laugh. "I'm kind of hoping your parents will put in a good word for me before I have to meet her."

I remained silent as the weight of what he'd said sank in. _James wanted to marry me? _

"We've talked about this before," he said softly, stroking my cheek with one finger. "Remember?"

"Er…yes?" I squeaked.

"So none of this should be news to you. I told you when we started going out that I wanted this to last."

"Yeah, er - I know. I'm all for that, personally. I just didn't - you just phrased that in a very attention-catching manner."

James grinned. "I've always been flashy. Which is how you know that I am not proposing to you right now."

"…Right."

"Because I haven't got a ring and I haven't done my manliest best to humiliate you in front of everyone you know."

"And you're so easy to read, too. How could I refuse?"

Now he rolled me onto my back and settled his weight on top of me. "I guess you'll have to spend the foreseeable future figuring that out," he murmured, kissing me on the mouth. "My lizard brain can't do it for you."

"Mmm. Primitive." I kissed him back. James had made it clear that he wasn't ready to get married, and that was fine with me; what did bother me was the way he suddenly made light of it, the way he seemed set on distracting me from my hopes. But no good could come of revealing my disappointment, so I let him remove our papers from the bed and begin to undress me.

He savored each article of clothing as it came off, did not ask my permission to touch; he didn't need to. There was hardly ever an occasion where I did not want him to touch me - I couldn't get enough of him. His lips, his shoulders, his hands and arms and waist; the weight of his chest on mine, the weight of his hips against my thighs - I wanted to fold him into myself and disappear into a place, some softly lit fantasy of a place, where I would never be asked or ordered or forced to let him go. In the gentle light of his bedroom I felt almost as if I'd arrived. The sex was slow and hard and deep; long and languid moments passed where I forgot who I was. I wished that first heavenly stroke as he pushed inside me would last forever.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Not knowing where to begin, I told James I'd like to meet with his parents as soon as they were free. This was perhaps not the most intelligent thing I'd ever done, because James had us over at his parents' house within two hours - I had time to shower, send an owl to the Order of the Phoenix, and stuff my documents into a satchel. I was ill-prepared to say the least when James led me across the snow-covered grounds of his parents' estate; the fact that they appeared to have their own orchard did little to ease my nerves.

"It's not an orchard," James laughed when I asked. "It's just an overgrown wood. My grandfather had a thing for buying land and then not doing anything with it. He owned a vineyard about three miles north of here, but that's a different story."

The Potters' house was smaller than I had anticipated, but not by much. It was a large stucco- and stone-faced structure built on the side of a wooded hill, with twin chimney stacks and three lovely bay windows looking out over a the meadowed valley and frozen brook below. Great drifts of snow had gathered on the roof, and - I was quite relieved by this for some reason - a plume of white smoke was rising from one of the chimneys. James helped me up the heavy stone steps and tapped the door with his wand.

"Ordinarily I'd just walk in," he said, peering into one of the windows, "but they might like a touch more ceremony this time."

"You think?"

"Well - they'll get to make a bigger fuss over you, let's put it that way."

At that moment, the door swung open. "Well, hello, stranger, my son," said the tall, gray-haired man I could only assume was James's father. He wore an impish grin that immediately took ten years off his otherwise elderly appearance, and indeed, he did carry himself with a certain gravity-defying sprightliness. "And what a pleasure it is to meet the young lady at last! The name's Harold. Come in, come in, don't just stand there in the snow, or Mrs. Potter will have my head."

"How's Mum?" James asked, shucking off his coat and scarf.

"A bloody terror as usual," Mr. Potter replied, taking our coats and hanging them on the wall with a flick of his wrist. "She's taken up knitting. She won't let me out of the bloody house if I'm not wearing ten layers of purple crochet."

"That's because you're always climbing about on the roof in the bloody snow!" came a woman's voice from somewhere I assumed to be the kitchen.

"Well, someone's got to do it, haven't they? Come and greet the children!"

There was a clatter, and then the quick patter of footsteps over the hardwood floor. Mrs. Potter was a short, wiry little woman with wavy gray hair framing her bird-like face, and she seemed to flutter right up to James as she reached out and clasped him in what looked like a bone-breaking hug. "At last, my son is back in the nest!" She planted a kiss firmly on his cheek - no small feat, as James was easily a foot taller than she was - and then she released him and looked him sternly up and down. She tutted. "Still too skinny - and you look like you've been rolling around in a thistle bush. What have you got up to this time?"

"Nothing I haven't been up to before," James said, pushing me forward. "Mum, this is Lily - "

"Oh, I surmised, I surmised," Mrs. Potter interrupted. She took my hand and clasped it in hers, smiling warmly. "Welcome, dear. I'm Ellen; it's so nice to meet you at last. You've worked miracles on my son, I can tell you that much."

I had no idea what she was talking about. "Well, I try," I said with an awkward smile.

"You were exactly what he needed," Mrs. Potter nodded, still gripping my hand firmly in hers. "You look rather cold, dear. Can I make you some tea?"

"Tea would be amazing," James cut in, smiling. He put an arm around his mother's shoulder and led her into the kitchen. "So how have you been, Mum?"

I stood rooted to the spot, dumbfounded. I must have been gawking, because Mr. Potter winked at me. "James learned that bit of chivalry from me."

I blinked. "Chivalry?" Then, catching myself, I laughed. "I guess he must have -"

"He's just saved you from having your gullet stuffed with pastries. Protecting your girlish figure, I'm sure. And he hasn't offended a soul!" Mr. Potter gazed contentedly after James for a moment, seemingly pondering this fantastic bit of luck. "That's always been my job, anyway. Here, Lily, let's get you situated and comfortable."

"Er - thanks," I said, still feeling stupendously awkward. "I really appreciate you having me over today. For making the time and all that."

"Oh, never mind that," Mr. Potter laughed. "Any friend of James is welcome in our house. What's more, we love the company."

"Do you often keep a lot of company?"

Mr. Potter shrugged. "We have a reasonably-sized social circle. My wife needs people to bake for."

"I can imagine," I said, gazing around the kitchen. There were three freshly-baked pies cooling by the oven, and a pot of something that smelled delicious was simmering on the stove; a tea kettle was steaming vigorously over a gas flame. Mrs. Potter was puttering energetically about the kitchen, fussing over which dishes ought to be used for dinner. James glanced over his shoulder and caught my eye, giving me an expression that said, _I guess this is a mother thing. _Then he went back to rummaging through the cabinets for Mrs. Potter's preferred dishes.

"So I hear you wanted to speak to us about a few people we may know," Mr. Potter said, giving me a studied look. He went to the wine rack on the wall and selected a rose-colored bottle, uncorked it with pronounced finesse, and poured four glasses with a gentle wave of his wand."James said something about you being the new obituary writer for the Order of the Phoenix, is that correct?"

"Yes," I replied. I was relieved to be getting to the business of my visit. "I guess you've heard about how that happened?"

"Why, yes, I have." Mr. Potter's eyes glinted. "Would you like some wine, dear?"

"Oh - yes, thank you." I sipped delicately; the last thing I needed was to reveal my pathetically low alcohol tolerance twenty minutes into my first meeting with James's parents. "This is very nice."

"It's a favorite of Ellen's. And for good reason." Mr. Potter smiled and blew a kiss at his wife, who waved her hand dismissively at him (though not without a hint of a smile) and stabbed the loaf of bread she had just taken from the oven with a fork. Mr. Potter continued. "I read the obituary you wrote for Paxton. It sounded very professional; I was duly impressed when James told me it was your writing."

"Oh," I blushed. "Thank you. I'm glad I - made a good impression. I'm hoping I'll be able to do the same thing this time around, which was why I wanted to speak to you about a few more people I'm supposed to write about. I mean, completely apart from wanting to meet you - "

Mr. Potter chuckled. "Oh, don't worry about it. You couldn't have persuaded me to meet Ellen's parents with anything short of a death threat when I was your age. I didn't meet them until I was forced into it - "

"He had to explain how my father's chimney had suddenly transformed into a massive totem pole," Mrs. Potter said. "Really, darling, you and your obituaries don't compare."

"So you see," Mr. Potter said. "You could be doing much worse for yourself."

I could not have felt more awkward if I'd tried, but I decided to bite the bullet and roll with it. "I'm not complaining. It's nice to be here." I smiled and pushed some hair out of my face to dissipate my nerves. "So let's get the morbid part over with, shall we? James mentioned that you knew Mathilda Hyppolete before she died; I was just wondering if you might know something about her personally that I could include in her obituary. You know, to flesh out the context around her life as a Charm Breaker for Gringotts."

"Ah," Mr. Potter nodded. "Yes. She was a nice woman, though Ellen and I never socialized with her much. She kept aloof of most things. Very introverted, never married. I believe she graduated from Hogwarts with a battery of honors, though - extremely clever lady. Gringotts will be missing her for sure." He sipped his wine, looking troubled.

"Do you have any idea how she died?" I asked carefully.

Mr. Potter cleared his throat. "Yes. The Death Eaters got her."

"Really," I said, my fingers going cold.

"Yes. A couple of Ministry officials found her dead in her living room chair one morning, after an Auror reported a failed capture of an unknown Death Eater. They're still trying to figure out who killed her."

"Was she an official member of the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Of course. She just never advertised that. Which was wise of her."

"Did she have any family to protect?" I asked breathlessly.

"No. No husband, no children. Her parents died nearly ten years ago."

"That's really sad," I said. "What about friends - was she well-liked? Is there anyone you'd suggest I speak to before I write her obituary?"

Mr. Potter sipped pensively at his wine. "I'm not sure I can point you to any particular person. Her family is all dead or outside the country. She was well-known, and certainly many people liked her, as far as they thought she was a nice lady with a good lot of talent. But I'm not sure if anyone knew her especially well. As I said, she was quite introverted."

"I see."

"I think it would be enough for you to write about her as an upstanding member of the community," Mr. Potter said. "You won't want to tell the world she was murdered for resisting the Dark Lord. You never know whose cover you'll compromise with a statement like that."

"You don't think it's a bit glib to just leave it at that?"

Mr. Potter's eyes flashed. "People will remember her as they should at her funeral service, behind closed doors. Your job is to acknowledge her death, not deliver a sermon."

I held his gaze uncertainly for a moment, wine waiting at my lips; then I looked away and sipped. "Fair enough. You're right."

No sooner had I uttered the words than Mr. Potter's expression was congenial again. "Well then," he said, heading towards the table James and Ellen had set. "Let's tuck in! My wife makes a fantastic shepherd's pie."

x.x.x.x.x.x

I interviewed Michael Kilkirk next. He was the son of Reg Kilkirk, a quiet, middle-aged man with a full head of hair but graying temples; I met him in his father's woodshop, the place where Reg had been killed. The shop was a bare-walled studio with a pair of heavy wooden benches dominating the center floor; the walls were covered with a dizzying array of heavy, serrated blades, and every surface in the room was coated with a fine layer of sawdust. Stacks of two-by-fours loomed in the back of the studio, beside a large contraption that looked like a power saw. There were no windows.

"I suppose you'd like a detailed account of everything my father liked to do, all the friends he had, all the petty adjectives you want me to give you permission to put in your obituary," Michael said wearily, wiping the sawdust off a pair of metal stools with a rag. "Is that right?"

His tone cowed me. "I just want a little bit of backstory," I said, trying not to sound defensive. "I can't pretend to know your father, but since what I write about him will be published, I thought you'd like to help me paint a more accurate picture of him."

Michael gave me a flat stare. "Would you like to sit down?"

I bristled a little. "If you'd like me to."

He gestured toward one of the stools he'd wiped off. I gave a self-deprecating smile and sat, crossing my legs. "Thank you."

"Not a problem." He remained standing.

"So…" I began shuffling through the documents I'd assembled. "I'm not here to make this painful for you. You can tell me only the information you want me to know, and I will not publish until you've approved the manuscript. You'll have nothing to worry about from me."

Michael nodded curtly.

"Your father was murdered?" I said coolly.

Michael nodded again. "Yes. By the Death Eaters, but you know that already. It was one of your own who failed to catch the one who killed him, I believe."

"There are a lot of Death Eaters we're after," I said dryly. "If they were easy to catch, I probably wouldn't be here."

"That's the thing," Michael said, his nostrils flaring. "The more of them you catch, the more of them that appear. You and your troop of resistance fighters aren't going about this the right way. The Death Eaters are always three steps ahead of you, and when some old man like my dad gets knocked off because of it, the rest of you don't show up on the scene until two days later wondering what the hell happened. You guys need to get your act together and figure out what the fuck you need to do to win this war."

_Then pick up a wand and go kill Death Eaters yourself, arsehole, _I thought. "Why do you think they went after your father?"

"Because he was a sixty-five-year-old man too stupid to muffle his bloody power saws," Michael said. His voice was tight with grief. "Because he was easy to kill. Because all he ever did was not join them. Because he was a bloody fucking _failure_ in a duel."

"What was he working on when he was murdered?" I asked softly.

"He was making wooden salad bowls. Salad bowls and spoons, you know, the kind with the twisted handles that every housewife loves - he was going to sell them at Luntworth's and Down's for ten Sickles apiece." Michael paced about the room, his hands to his temples, pressing the veins there. Then he stopped and looked at me almost belligerently. "You probably own one of his soup ladles. You look like the type who'd use it."

"I don't own any sort of soup ladle," I said quietly. "I'm not a very accomplished chef, sadly."

"You're young, you're pretty - you ought to be married, hidden, safe at home. What are you doing talking to jerks like me?"

"I'm talking to a jerk like you," I said, smiling slightly. "People liked your father's woodwork, didn't they? I saw some of his products selling for a hefty penny when I was at Luntworth's and Down's one day. One woman was examining a pie safe he'd made and said she'd pay twice the price gladly."

"He enchanted his products," Michael replied. His eyes were dark with faraway grief. "They Transfigured themselves on command, had hidden safes and key holes. Very useful for hiding things you didn't want to put into Gringotts. Very functional."

"He must have been quite the handyman at home."

"He built the house he brought my mother home to. His wedding gift to her," Michael said calmly. Then, quite suddenly, he rounded on me, eyes wet and blazing. "I think you had better leave now."

I blinked in surprise, but Michael only bore down on me more, picking up my papers and shoving them in my face. "Girl," he said dangerously, "I said you had better leave."

Heart racing, I snatched my papers back and hurried out of the shop, not daring to take my eyes off him until he had slammed the door behind me.

x.x.x.x.x.x

My third and last interview was with Melinda Dimple, the widow of Dionysus Dimple.

My heart sank as soon as I entered her cottage; she looked to be no younger than eighty years old; her hair was thinning; her knuckles protruded; she walked with a shuffle and her hands trembled as she opened the door. Her house smelled like cabbage and onions, and her furniture was decorated with lace doilies that appeared to have withstood the abuse of long-grown up grandchildren.

"Hello, dear," she said, in a small, gravelly voice. "They told me you were writing a book about my husband."

"Well, not a book. Just a short article to put in the newspaper."

Melinda nodded and shuffled into the living room, where she sat down in one of the two armchairs that stood facing each other. Her hands folded in her lap, clutching one another limply. "He was a good man."

"Yes," I replied. "I know he was."

"I miss him, but he never did remember to drink his tea." Melinda continued nodding, staring at the carpet, appearing not to be looking at anything at all. "I always told him it would help his rheumatism."

"I'm sure he never meant to forget."

Melinda dropped her gaze into her lap. "I miss him very much," she muttered. "Very much. He was a good man."

My eyes began to prickle as I watched her there, rocking slowly back and forth as she was; it was then that I realized she was probably suffering from dementia. But I wasn't ready to give up just yet, so I straightened my back and composed myself. "What was your favorite memory about him, Melinda? What was one thing he did that made you really happy?"

"Very good man," Melinda mumbled. "Miss him very much." Her fingers moved in her lap, and she fell silent.

"Melinda?" I asked hesitantly.

No response. A moment later, a choked sob, a gagging noise. I stood up and went to her immediately, afraid that she might choke on her tongue or something to that effect. I put one hand on her back and the other on her forehead, holding her head up straight; her shoulders convulsed under my fingers, and she coughed terribly, stringy saliva dribbling from the corner of her mouth. But then she inhaled deeply, wailed once, and then simply began to weep, her forehead bouncing against my palm, shoulders trembling, hands clutching the fabric of her skirt. Tears began dropping into her lap and I breathed. She would not die with me standing in the room.

I stayed with her for a long time that evening, kneeling beside her with my arm around her shoulder, crooning to her as if she were a child. Yes, Melinda, your husband misses you too. He loves you very much and would never leave you; you were a good wife and he will always remember that. Yes, Melinda - your husband is waiting with God for you to come and join him there, where you will both be young and never die again.

I left only after she had finally fallen asleep. I covered her gently with a knit blanket she had left draped over the couch, propped her head against a pillow, and wiped the wetness from her cheeks. When her breathing was even and deep, I turned and shut the door softly behind me.

x.x.x.x.x.x

James was asleep when I arrived at his flat that night. I hadn't told him I was coming, but after being at Melinda's, every inch of my body was weak with the need to be held. The sight of James asleep as he was - flat on his back with an arm behind his head, chest bare in a swath of moonlight - filled me with such relief that I almost fell to my knees and wept right there at the side of the bed. By a trick of the light he was pale as death, but his skin gave him away, warm and full of vitality and youth.

I showered, dried, and got under the covers beside him. Without opening his eyes, he put an arm around me and pulled me close. I ran my hand over his hip and found him naked; he had been expecting me.

"I re-read your latest," he said sleepily. "When this is all over I'm taking you to America, and we're going to stand at the foot of Niagara Falls."

I stirred against him, curious. "I thought you were asleep."

"Hush," he murmured. "Good night, Lily."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

**Author's note:** Hi everyone. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, despite its darkish content. It was kind of a tough chapter to write - in a way, I felt sort of like Lily, trying to do justice to characters I'd write about only once. Odd feeling, that. Hm.

Comments are appreciated, as always. If you notice a typo or something that doesn't quite make sense, or something the characters do or say that seems off somehow, feel free to let me know; I promise I don't bite. :P

Cheers! Thanks for reading. :)

- Silverspinner


	7. Until Externally Acted Upon

**- Chapter 6: Until Externally Acted Upon - **

I woke the following morning - a Saturday - from a fitful sleep, and to an empty bed. The sheets were wrinkled where James had lain, his pillow still indented. White light, stark with the appearance of opaqueness, spilled from behind the quiet of James's curtains. The edges of shadows faded over the walls, and I knew from their dullness that this morning was cloudy with neither wind nor snow. James must have gone to Headquarters for dueling lessons with Moody or one of the other Aurors. The thought of him dodging curses in somebody's under-used, over-cluttered office made the whiteness of the morning light seem more insistent. More viscous.

Pressing my fingers to my forehead, I sat up and tried to orient myself. I felt dizzy and weak, as though my body had not followed my brain out of slumber. I was filled with a vague sense of having dreamed of something unpleasant, a vague memory of James pushing the blankets back and kissing my shoulder before he took his overcoat and left. The sound of Melinda Dimple choking, the feel of her body lurching against my palm, were still fresh in my mind. I suspected I had dreamed about her.

I fumbled my way into a pair of James's boxer shorts and an old long-sleeved T-shirt of his, then slid off the bed and fumbled my way into the kitchen in similar fashion. James had left his coffee pot out on the countertop, next to the sink, such that our shared house plant seemed to have misted itself on the steam from James's leftover coffee. Blearily I dumped out the dregs and put the pot away. I felt domestic and weirdly, silently misplaced. The necklace James had given me hung warmly about my neck, tickling me. My breasts were two sculpted handfuls that weighed too much for their size; the clear polish on my left toenail had still not cracked. Our house plant was bending toward the window and the window was simply not moving.

I set a pot of water to boil on the stove and began rummaging through the cabinets for some sort of breakfast food. There was a box of white pasta, a bag of walnuts, a half-loaf of bread, and a brick of flour. What James had been doing with a brick of flour was beyond me, as he'd never given any indication of having so much as an inkling of what flour was used for - but I immediately seized upon the idea of baking and began searching for eggs and vegetable oil as well. I would bake myself some bread. Yes. That was exactly what I would do.

I opened the refrigerator and yanked open the vegetable crisper. A bag of something rolled noisily at the bottom of the drawer; upon excavation of this something, I discovered that James had apparently been stockpiling six or seven zucchinis and a bunch of nearly over-ripe bananas.

_Why the hell would you put bananas in the refrigerator?_ I wondered dimly as I slapped the produce onto the counter.

Another few rummages through James's kitchen drawers revealed an impressive set of cooking knives - his mother's, no doubt - and a marvelously useless set of baking pans. With relish I picked out the largest one and rubbed the sides down with flour, and then set myself to the task of dicing no fewer than three zucchinis into obsessively tiny pieces.

An hour later, when my zucchini-banana-bread concoction was safely in the oven, I stood by the kitchen window with a mug of tea and wondered why in hell I'd just wasted the morning dicing zucchini.

x.x.x.x.x.x

My bread turned out surprisingly well, and did me the added favor of filling James's flat with the warm, sweet scent of cinnamon, sugar, and banana. I felt a rush of pride when I took the loaf out of the oven. I had baked bread and I would give the thickest slice to the man I was sleeping with when he came home from work. I would cook and clean for him, and then I would let him bury himself in my feminine softness. I would do this until I grew old and demented, and then, when my time on Earth was over, I'd ask to die and join my husband in Heaven. I would be a good wife and I would sob and choke against a young girl's palm when my husband left me.

I cut myself a slice of bread, buttered it, and sat down at the table with the pile of notes I'd taken the previous night. The bread melted fragrantly in my mouth. I knew right then and there that the day I became a domestic housewife would have to be the day I killed myself.

The obituary notes lay sullenly in front of me, seeming to frown at me in their sparseness. I had barely managed a page on Mathilda Hyppolete. I had less than half a page on Reg Kilkirk. And on Dionysus Dimple - all I had was a mean, stringy three lines. I saw my future laid out before me: Interview after interview, each a pointless and one-sided conversation, each for the purpose of writing intelligently about people whose life stories I had absolutely no business writing. I'd take a page of worthless notes for each person, come home, and fabricate a story; then I'd cook dinner, fuck my husband, and sleep. And the next day I would do it all again.

_And for what?_ I thought. _For nothing but the privilege of glossing over the brutal deaths of people I'll never meet. _

The pressure rose in my chest then, overflowed and constricted my throat. I laid my head in my arms and wept.

x.x.x.x.x.x

A heavy snow began falling as I cleaned up the mess I'd made in the kitchen. The paleness and quiet of the morning seemed to accentuate the wet splatters of egg and bread batter on the countertop, seemed to soften the fabric of James's clothing on my skin. I brewed myself another cup of tea and took my notes back into James's bedroom, where I pulled the curtains and sat down at his desk, spreading the curled parchment flat in front of me. I felt a bit as if I were invading his privacy; he hadn't put away his letters or tax returns, and his favorite falcon-feather quill was lying out in full view, right on top of a note he'd written to himself on Moody's dueling lessons.

Feeling slightly guilty, I helped myself to a quill - a smaller one I didn't think he used very often - and an ink bottle. With an unsteady hand I began writing, dropping flecks of ink over the parchment and smearing them as my hand moved jerkily from line to line.

_Mathilda T. Hyppolete_

_Born August 12, 1943_

_Deceased February 23, 1979_

_Known by her contemporaries for her outstanding talent for Charm-breaking, Mathilda T. Hyppolete will be remembered by many for her cool-headedness and ability to perform under fire. But not only was Ms. Hyppolete competent in her field; she was also kind-hearted and unassuming, always prepared to lend a hand and never gossiping about her neighbors. This upstanding woman has enriched and indeed streamlined the lives of many around her, and though she led a quiet and discreet life, she will be remembered most fondly by all who have known her. _

_Reginald Kilkirk_

_Born April 30, 1915_

_Deceased February 5, 1979_

_The humble owner of a single family-owned wood shop, Reginald Kilkirk was the wizard who created many of the special woodworked items we've come to love and appreciate: The vaulted cabinets with their hidden safes, the rain-repelling roof shingles, and those famous wooden wand cases that open only for the wand owner - these are but a mere few of the inventions Mr. Kilkirk has graced us with, though perhaps his most admirable achievement was the house he built as a wedding gift to his wife, Laura, who is now deceased. It is with great sadness that we bid this talented and generous man farewell. Best wishes to his son, Michael. May he live in peace and good health. _

I hesitated for a long time after I finished Kilkirk's obituary, my hand hovering uncertainly over the parchment. Ink began to drip from the nib as I stared emptily at the words I'd so hastily scribbled. Snow was accumulating on the windowsill, sliding down the windowpanes; all the world seemed to have gone silent with me.

Numbly, I dipped the quill again and wrote the first thing that came to mind:

_Dionysus Bacchus Dimple_

_Born October 16, 1901_

_Deceased February 8, 1979 _

_A spirited and warm-hearted man, Dionysus Bacchus Dimple died of natural causes. He is missed dearly by his children, grandchildren, and wife Melinda. Rest in peace, Dionysus; may you be loved as much in memory as you were in life. _

I blew on the ink once after I finished, then sat back. How _a propos_ of me to write three lines of nothing for the obituary that haunted me most.

I went back out into the kitchen, washed my dishes, and stared out at the snow for a while. It was accumulating prettily in the street, drifting over the rows of trees parked cars with a soft whiteness that soothed my guilt. I would need to make a trip to the post office soon.

As I pulled on my jeans and overcoat, a sudden thought struck me: _Why do I not have an owl to carry my mail? _I wasn't rich, but buying an owl was certainly within my means - and it would most definitely be less expensive in the long run than paying the post office every three days to owl my mail to _The Daily Prophet_ for me. _How frivolous would it be, _I thought guiltily, _if I just went to Diagon Alley today and had a look at the owls for sale? _

In that moment, the thought of bringing home a large bird of prey became absurdly appealing. Like a woman obsessed with the idea of trapping a man into giving her a baby, I was now viscerally enamored with the idea of adopting an owl, naming it, talking to it, and throwing open the windows at night to let it hunt down its food. I couldn't figure out why I'd wasted so much money all these years on the post office. Why rent an owl when I could have one of my own?

I knew I probably wouldn't even have thought to look at the owls today if I hadn't just spent the morning depressively writing obituaries, but the damage was already done. I counted my money, decided I had enough to spare, and set out for Diagon Alley.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Diagon Alley was covered in a charming layer of snow when I arrived, and now the sun was emerging, beginning to burn its way out from behind the thick cotton-gray clouds. A heartening number of people were wandering the alley in groups of twos and threes, kicking up snow as they went; some had brought children, and others, their elderly parents. Icicles dripped steadily from the roofs of many of the shops, glinting cheerily in the half-sun. Already the morning's snowfall was beginning to melt into the gutters and storm drains, and for a second I thought I could smell the first hint of spring in the air. The freshness of it seemed to collide with my image of an owl cage clasped firmly in my hands, and a feeling of doubt began to creep over me. Was I really just being frivolous, buying things simply to distract myself from a bad mood? Wasn't this sort of similar to having a child just to distract yourself from a bad marriage - oughtn't I content myself with taking a walk and getting some fresh air when I was getting too emotional over my job?

I gazed around the alley, at the book shops, at the pubs and apothecaries, the jewelry and clothing boutiques; but before I could begin to hate myself for my (newfound?) tendency towards mindless consumption, a male voice interrupted me. I nearly jumped.

"Evans!" Sirius Black said jovially, striding up to me with noticeable swagger. He was carrying what looked like a large butterbeer in one hand and a canvas bag stuffed with groceries in the other; as he sidled up beside me he kicked a good lot of snow over my shoes. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were talking to dead people today."

I shivered and blinked once to clear my head. "Nope," I said, putting on a cheerful voice. "I'm ahead of schedule. No more dead people on today's list."

"Nice." Sirius took a swig of butterbeer, then offered me the bottle. "Want some?"

"I think I'm all right for now. Thanks, though."

"No? Fine, your loss," Sirius said cheerfully. "So since you're free, do you want to join James and me later today for some motorbike action?" He waggled his eyebrow suggestively at me.

I laughed more loudly than I'd intended. "'Motorbike action'? So that's what you call it, eh?"

"James doesn't think you'll find it at all sexy, and he made the mistake of betting me on that. So I think you need to come over and give in to the need to swoon at the sight of a very, very sexy motorbike."

"I think I might save that for later," I said. That James and Sirius had time to go off gallivanting on Sirius's half-renovated motorbike made me slightly jealous. "I'm probably going to head back to the mailroom first thing tomorrow to give Hestia a hand."

"No, Evans. Really." Sirius grinned roguishly.

"No, really, I mean it." I blushed a little and looked down at my shoes. "James will tell you, I'm in this completely off-the-wall sleep pattern. I think I just need to not be awake until five in the morning tonight."

"Oh, bollocks. I keep betting that git that he can't possibly be as good in bed as he says he is."

I blinked - then burst out laughing. "You are such a pig. You seriously bet him money on that?"

"You'd understand if you were me," Sirius said, smirking as he took another swig of butterbeer. "He deflated his head for you, not the rest of us. So tell me the truth, Evans. Would you defend such insufferable bragging? Would you really?"

"Wow. You're an even bigger prick than I thought," I answered. I smirked right back. "Pay up, Black."

"Seriously? You'd betray me like that? _God_, Evans. _God_."

"Yep. Cough it up."

There was a moment's pause in which Sirius merely looked at me with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, his eyes seeming to bore holes straight through mine; but then his expression lightened, his mouth quirking this time into a genuine smile. "That was pretty good, Evans," he nodded, raising his butterbeer. "Sorry. Wingman tendencies. Even though I knew you weren't about to start ragging on him."

"I'm not going to lie, Sirius, sometimes I think you're out of your mind."

He shrugged. "Old habits die hard. Now, are you sure you don't want in on this motorbike tonight? I'm test-flying it. First time out. Virgin flight. Probably the most worthwhile thing you'll see all week."

"I'll think about it," I said coolly.

The corner of Sirius's mouth twitched. "Make it happen, Evans. I'm counting on you."

"Anything for you."

"Now you're getting it."

I rolled my eyes. "You're incorrigible."

"Do you see any trace of shame," Sirius smirked, gesturing toward his legs and torso, "anywhere at all on this getup?"

"Nope. You're incorrigible and you're bloody proud of it."

"Yep. Shame, isn't it?" Sirius stretched contentedly. "But in all seriousness. What are you here for?"

My guilt flooded back instantly. "Oh, right. That. Well," I said, shifting my weight a little, "I just had the insane idea this morning to buy myself an owl to carry my mail. I thought it'd be less expensive than going to the post office every time I needed a stack of obituaries mailed. I was just dawdling indecisively when you showed up."

"Well, you're right about it being cheaper. What's the holdup?"

"An owl just seems like a slightly insane thing to buy on a whim."

Sirius shrugged. "So what? Women buy expensive crap they don't need all the time. At least an owl is useful."

"I know, I just feel stupid."

"You women," Sirius said, shaking his head. "Seriously, if you're going to drop a bucket of money on something, it might as well be an owl. Just go do the damage and stop obsessing over it."

I ruffled my hair uncomfortably. "You think?"

"Bloody fucking yes, Evans. _Especially_ because you're a woman."

x.x.x.x.x.x

That was how I ended up walking into The Magical Menagerie that afternoon without immediately losing my nerve and turning back. Sirius bade me farewell shortly after marching me right up to the shop's doorstep, saying he needed to get home and get back to working up his motorbike for the evening's test flight, and left me stuttering in bewilderment as the smiling shopkeeper opened the door and all but manhandled me into the store.

I gulped when I got inside. The shop suddenly felt much larger than it had looked from the street. There were owls everywhere, tethered to perches along the walls and all over the rafters. Black and spotted tabby cats opened their eyes and gazed impassively at me. Toads croaked from the inside of a large glass aquarium lining a good half of the far wall. A couple of owls which had previously been sleeping woke up, ruffled their wings, stared at me, and hooted. I felt conspicuous and rather absurd standing there like a gawping idiot.

"Are we looking for a companion today?" came a cool, even voice from behind a shelf of pet supplies. The shopkeeper stepped into the aisle, a tawny, olive-skinned man in a heavy coat and hunting boots. He looked to be of Asian descent, with eyes so dark they were almost black; a thick black braid hung from the nape of his neck. He wiped his hands on his coat and pulled the heaviest leather glove I'd ever seen onto his right hand.

"Er," I said, wondering what the hell a man like him was doing selling owls and toads, "I thought I'd just have a look at the owls."

"Ah, yes," the shopkeeper said, his mouth twitching into a small smile. "Our variety of owls are very useful. Are you hoping to purchase a mail courier?"

"Primarily," I said, unable to take my eyes off the glove on his hand. "I'm just - uncertain of how to properly care for an owl. Most of my friends seem to keep theirs in cages or in an owlery when they're not sending them out for mail."

Now the shopkeeper's eyes glinted, and he smiled more broadly. "Oh, so you are not sure you want to keep a bird of prey cooped up all day."

"Well…yes," I said, dropping my gaze to his shoulders. "I'd like to have an owl, as I send a lot of mail, but - "

"You are not sure you want to handle a natural predator," the shopkeeper nodded, still smiling. "You do not have to tell me. It is written all over your face."

There was something about his eyes - dangerous, controlled, but somehow still warm - that unnerved me. I shrank a little before him and nodded, not knowing what to say.

"My name is Temujin," he said. He held out his ungloved hand and smiled graciously. "Please call me by my name. I am pleased to know you."

I took his hand and shook it as firmly as I could, smiling back. "Likewise. My name is Lily."

"Wonderful," Temujin said. He gave a little nod and released my hand. "You are familiar with many wizarding owls, are you not?"

"I am familiar with them."

"Every owl in my shop is hatched from an egg," Temujin said evenly, led me down the aisle to the wall where a half-dozen owls perched, all asleep, and gestured towards the owls with one sweep of his arm. "All of these owls can feel magic. They have subtle powers that allow them to form a bond with their masters. These are not ordinary owls. They are all raised by humans and trained as couriers. Because they grew up with many other owls, they are also less likely to attack other owls."

"I see."

"They are predators just as ordinary owls are. They must not be kept in a cage for more than two or three hours per day. You must let them out every night to hunt, and you must let them fly free for several hours each day. You must not let them out where there are hawks. You must also watch out for eagles."

"Why is that?" I asked timidly.

"Hawks will attack and kill any owls that enter hawk territory. An owl can kill a hawk at night, but when there is sunlight," Temujin said, tapping the corner of his eye with an ungloved finger, "the hawk will be able to see the owl. In this situation the hawk will always win, for he is so much faster and more agile than the owl."

I gazed over the six owls all sleeping before me, processing this. "Which species would you recommend?" I said softly.

"That is for you to decide," Temujin replied. "These are all good owls. You will not be disappointed with any of them."

I remained silent for a few moments, studying the owls. I recognized two Barn Owls and one Screech Owl; I didn't recognize the other breeds. Then a sudden wave of curiosity struck me. "Could I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

"How did you come to run a pet store?"

Temujin's dark eyes flickered, and then he gave me another one of his cool, even smiles. "I am not originally a pet store owner," he replied. "I grew up in Mongolia. You know where that is?"

"Yes, of course."

"My father and his father were eagle-hunters." Temujin regarded me intently. "Do you understand the art of eagle-hunting?"

"Er - no, I don't think I know anything about it."

Temujin nodded curtly, seeming to scrutinize me. "Do you have time today? I can show you the art if you would like to see."

I looked up in surprise. "Really?"

Temujin put an arm lightly around my shoulder and led me to the back of the shop. "Come with me. I will show you, and then perhaps you will purchase an owl." He smiled slightly at his joke.

Senses heightening, I reached into my pocket for my wand and watched his back as he worked the lock of the narrow wooden door at the rear of the shop. Quietly, I slid my wand up my sleeve; I was half-expecting him to grab me and thrust me into the supply closet and either try to kill or rape me. But curiosity kept me rooted to the spot, wand at the ready, and I watched as he jimmied the lock one last time and then kicked the door open.

There was no supply room. There were no year-old piles of bagged pet food, no empty cages, no dusty shelves or furniture of any kind. There were no walls; there wasn't even a floor - and after a moment's astonished gaping, I realized that there was no ceiling, either.

"Follow me," Temujin ordered. Dumbly, I followed, and he shut the door behind us.

I was standing in a vast green meadow, with mountains on the west and a woodland on the east. The sun hung low on the horizon, almost setting, glittering on the surface of the river that cut through the mountains and crossed the meadow before us. A cool wind blew in from the north, causing an entire flock of starlings to come shrieking out of the grass; in the distance I could make out something that looked like a wolf, prowling through the brush.

"Where is this?" I asked breathlessly.

"Oh, I do not know," Temujin said, giving a slight laugh. "It is not important. I simply built a portal in my shop to a place where I could train my birds."

"So this is where you…do what, exactly?"

Temujin didn't answer; instead, he cupped his hands around his mouth and barked out a harsh call of some kind, then whistled and shouted again, scanning the sky and woodlands. After a few moments the dark silhouette of a large bird of prey rose above the treetops and began soaring toward us. Temujin smiled to himself and lifted his gloved hand. A few seconds later, this large - and very fierce-looking - bird swooped in on us, flapping its wings as it reached out and sank its talons sharply into Temujin's glove. In a second the bird had steadied itself, and now it turned its streamlined head and fixed its piercing amber stare on me. I exhaled.

"This is a red-tailed hawk," Temujin said. He reached into a small pouch at his waist and pulled out a morsel of what looked like raw squirrel meat, then held it at the hawk's feet. Immediately the hawk dropped its stare and began snapping at the meat. "I call him Tsahan-Zam. Tsahan for short. I trapped him five years ago and trained him to hunt with me. He was my hunting partner until three weeks ago, when I released him back into the wild. But he still answers my commands."

"Is this…eagle-hunting?"

"In this country we call it falconry. In Mongolia we train golden eagles to hunt wolves to protect our livestock. But golden eagles are not so common here. I am trying to trap one, but so far, no luck."

"So you trap the birds," I said, watching the hawk in disbelief as it ripped at its meat and gulped it down, "and then you train them to come to you, and then - you make them hunt for you?"

"Basically. We teach the birds that they will be fed if they do what we want them to do. A bird of prey is a mercenary creature. It does not want affection, only food and protection from other predators. It does not love its master."

"I see."

"Come with me," Temujin said, walking towards the woods. The hawk immediately lifted its head and stared off into the distance, seeming to scan the horizon. "Let us see if Tsahan-Zam will hunt for us. He is very active and needs to hunt often."

We rustled through the meadow grasses for several minutes before the hawk suddenly straightened up and froze, its gazed fixed on something I couldn't see. It began to open and close its beak, shifting its talons on Temujin's glove.

"He sees prey," Temujin said. And with that, he threw the hawk from his arm; no sooner had its talons lifted from his arm than the hawk was beating its wings, rising rapidly into the sky. In a moment it had risen to an altitude of what looked like several hundred feet, and began to swoop down over the trees.

And then the hawk screamed - a high-pitched, rasping, terrifying scream that sent a chill into my bones. A few seconds later I saw why it had screamed: A tree branch rustled, and another bird flew up into the sky, flapping madly, not seeming to realize that it had just exposed itself to the very predator it was trying to flee.

Then the hawk swept in from above, talons out - and struck. The other bird cartwheeled at the impact, flapping disjointedly, trying to right itself; then the hawk struck again, this time trapping the bird in its talons and then rising into the sky once more.

A moment later the hawk swooped into the grass before us, flapped once to steady itself, and then - without acknowledging our presence - ripped straight into the bird's neck, tossing feathers aside as it snapped and tore at still breathing flesh. The bird shrieked and fluttered desperately; the hawk merely grasped the bird's beak in one talon, forced its head back down, and continued to eat. When it lifted its head again, its beak was coated with blood.

I swallowed and tried to steady myself. I couldn't remember seeing anything this perfectly brutal in my life.

"You came on a good day," Temujin said. "I wondered if I should show you the peregrine falcon I have recently trapped, but Tsahan-Zam has put on a spectacular show for you."

I felt dizzy. "What sort of bird did he kill?"

Temujin looked thoughtfully at the bloody mess of bones and feathers, then poked it with his gloved finger. The hawk shrieked at him. Unfazed, Temujin turned the dead bird's head over beneath the hawk's talons. Then he made a sucking sound. "Ah, yes. I have been waiting for this kill." He stood up and wiped the blood from his glove. He was clearly satisfied. "Tsahan-Zam has killed the Great Horned Owl that has been bothering him all month. This owl tried to usurp Tsahan's prey and territory and drive him away. They have fought for dominance three or four times already."

"An owl," I repeated. "This hawk has just killed an owl?"

"And all the better for that," Temujin said contentedly. "This is survival. There are many birds of prey in this area. They must compete with one another for food and territory. Owls that are stupid enough to hunt in a hawk's territory by day must die, to ensure that stupid owl chicks are not born."

"So tell me," I said, feeling ill. "Why are you running a pet store, again?"

"I am hoping to found a school of falconry for wizards in a few years," Temujin replied. "Wizards are shamefully stupid about birds of prey. But I cannot teach them without permits and facilities. For those, I need money." Then he smiled ironically. "I see you are not interested in purchasing an owl any longer."

"What? No - well. I'm still not sure, to be honest."

"Think about it. I will still be in my shop when you have made your decision."

"Thank you," I said weakly.

"Come," Temujin said kindly. "Let us go back. You have seen enough."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Needless to say, I didn't purchase an owl. Rather, I walked out of the shop feeling an immense sense of guilt for having gone in at all - but now I also felt sick at heart, as though I'd been awakened to an ugly truth I'd never quite grasped before: The very fact of my existence was brutal. I was born brutally, pushed from my mother's body in an agony of fluid and blood; I lived brutally, each year letting dozens of chickens and cows have their heads sliced off of their bleeding bodies, each day carrying a weapon in my pocket, should I need to commit murder; and I would die brutally, either as someone else's kill, or through some slow and terrible deterioration of my flesh.

James and Sirius were shocked at my appearance in Sirius's back yard that night. The first thing they did, of course, was swear jovially at me for showing up.

"Lily. Woman. Get over here and look at this thing," James yelled, grinning like an idiot. He was waving towards the back yard. "This is better than any bloody dead person. Come."

A beam of blinding white light went up in the yard; then came a loud, whining sputter of an engine, followed by Sirius whooping loudly over the din. Mildly amused, I opened the gate to the yard and climbed over the deep snowbank blocking the rest of the street from Sirius's property. James and Sirius were both standing over the motorbike, Sirius with a screwdriver in one hand and a wrench in the other, and James with his wand alight.

"So you're still messing around with Muggle tools, hm, Sirius," I said, shivering as I came up beside them. "Manly. Points for that."

Sirius gave a self-satisfied smile. "See, Prongs? I told you. It's only been two minutes and she's already swooning."

"What, over your skinny little screwdriver? Please."

"This screwdriver is just a miniature prototype."

"Have you got it to fly yet?" I cut in, tilting my head sweetly. Immediately James and Sirius looked up and smiled.

"We don't know yet," Sirius replied. "But she's revving up to go. You want to be the first one to ride?"

"I think I'll leave that to you," I said, giving James a look. "I want to see you take her up the first time. Then, when I know I won't die in midair, I'll give it a shot."

Sirius rolled up his sleeves and pressed his palms together. "Fair enough." His eyes glinted. "You heard the lady, Prongs. Off with you."

James smirked and stepped behind me, putting his arms firmly around my middle. "No. I have other things to do tonight. Let's see it."

Sirius shrugged and threw a leg over the motorbike. "Your loss, then. Watch this." Then he grasped the handles, grinned with a glimmer of madness in his eyes, and kicked off.

The motorbike took off like a shot, leaving a trail of white-gold sparks behind it; and Sirius whooped and banked sharply, swinging the motorbike into an arc that cut through the frigid night air like a glowing scythe. Suddenly a pair of glimmering, wing-like blades fanned out beneath Sirius's feet, and Sirius accelerated with a sputter and a roar, this time banking and barrel-rolling with hairpin precision, laughing at the top of his lungs.

I felt James's hands find mine, and was taken aback at their greasy, dirty texture. I pulled his hands out in front of me and spread his palms. They were covered with black motor oil.

"James," I said, leaning my head back against his shoulder. "What have you been doing?"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a smile form on his lips. "What have I been doing?" he said contentedly. "Putting those ailerons on that bike. Pretty bang-up job for a bloke who can't screw in a light bulb, don't you think?"

I paused for a moment. Then: "You put the ailerons on that thing?"

"Yeah. Just an idea we didn't think would work, but decided to try anyway." James laughed. "I was pretty sure he'd crash straight into someone's roof tonight with those things, but I guess I was wrong."

"Where did you get the idea to do that?"

"Easy," James said. "You ever wonder how birds can bank into a stoop dive and come out of it completely in control? They adjust their feathers."

"So you put metal feathers on this thing."

"In a manner of speaking. They're heavily enchanted. I don't have a fucking clue how to pound feathers out of a scrap of junk metal."

I laughed and leaned into him, letting him tighten his arms around my waist - but silently I was wondering: _How does he bloody fucking do it? _I imagined him getting down on one knee and putting a diamond ring on my finger - a beautiful diamond, for James would never settle for anything less - and I felt myself withering in the light on his face, in the glimmer of the ring, in the simple, shining confidence that he exuded. James Potter, my innocently, deviously brilliant boyfriend. James Potter, who - for some reason I couldn't comprehend - loved me, unflaggingly and unconditionally.

"I forget," he said, his breath warm in my ear. "Do you get motion sick?"

"Er," I replied uselessly.

"Because I think you should take a ride with Sirius on that thing."

"You don't want to fly it?" I said, feeling light-headed. I couldn't remember being more attracted to James ever in my life.

"Oh, I'll fly it. I'm going to make it do things that defy physics."

Just then Sirius came careening back into the yard, sending up a huge spume of snow as he landed. I had never seen him look this self-satisfied and this utterly reckless. "So," he said, grinning manically, "who wants to go next?"

And so I watched as James and Sirius took the motorbike into the sky, banking, barrel rolling, going into dizzying corkscrew dives that made me fear they'd lose their grip and plunge to their deaths as the motorbike went up in flames - and then I watched as James came back down to earth, stripped down to a bare shirt and jeans, and took his broomstick from the shed behind Sirius's house.

"I need a fair comparison," he said, a dangerous glint in his eye. And with that he kicked off the ground and went speeding into the heavens, a sleek, bullet-like silhouette against the freezing stars; and this time rocketed upwards until I could barely see him, and then - the tiny bullet that was James rolled suddenly and plunged. For several hundred feet he dove; then, at perhaps ten feet above our heads, he suddenly pulled out of the dive, banked, rolled, and somersaulted off the broomstick, landing with a hushed thud in the snow. He was laughing.

"I just completely outflew your bike, Padfoot," he panted. "We're adjusting the ailerons first thing next week. Finer controls. And more speed. You got nothing if you don't have more pickup." And with that he simply lay there, splayed out in the snow, breathing hard, smiling as if he were incapable of any other expression - smiling as if he'd just cheated death.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

**A/N:** So here we are. This was a weird chapter for me to write - it was a solid reminder to me of just how weird this story is. :] It looked a lot less weird in outline form. It wasn't until I started watching YouTube videos of eagles killing wolves and falcons stoop diving from twelve thousand feet that I realized I might be getting myself in a little more deeply than I'd first suspected. BUT in all seriousness, take a look at this: http : /www . youtube . com / watch ? v = j3mTPEuFcWk. Just take the spaces out of the URL and paste it into your browser. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, yeah, that was my homework for this chapter. No way Harry or James could handle those kinds of insane flight stunts (though I bet James would have loved to push the envelope) - though if I were Lily, I'd still be pretty impressed.

Cheers. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and I hope you've enjoyed this one!


	8. Physics and Physicality

**- Chapter 7: Physics and Physicality - **

I was never a particularly athletic child, though I did show some talent for rolling about in the mud with other children and somehow coming out on top. I was wiry and reasonably strong for my age, but terrible at throwing, catching, and handling any sort of projectile. I nearly broke my nose after failing to judge the trajectory of a football falling towards me. I couldn't score a goal in football to save my life. I routinely left the park with scrapes and bruises where various flying balls had hit me and left me smeared with goose droppings or clods of muddy snow, depending on the time of year. I was also never an especially fast runner, though I could out-pace my sister and her prissy friends with relative ease. All told, I was average and did not, for the most part, care to improve.

School was easy enough for me. Contrary to what my peers and parents expected, I turned out to have little difficulty keeping diligent. I did my homework each night, at the same time, and always finished it before bed. I was a fast reader and grasped math well enough out-perform my classmates without really understanding why some of them had such trouble with it. I also displayed signs of talent with words, first evidenced by my consistently perfect or near-perfect scores on grammar and spelling exams when I was about nine years old. I became an avid storyteller, for which my classmates either admired or detested me - and when they detested me, I detested them right back and left my wounded pride at that.

The only real challenge I experienced in school was the playground. Every day after lunch, our teachers would escort us out to the playground, where we could mingle with the younger and older children. Here I often saw Edwin and Noah - who were a year older than I - playing football with a crowd of older boys or digging for worms with which to harass the girls. Indeed, by the time Edwin was nine, he had developed quite a penchant for chasing Petunia with worms and various captured insects just to get a rise out of her; though my mother always assured her that he only tormented her because he thought she was pretty, Petunia knew better.

"That kid is such a little _prat,"_ she said furiously, slapping dirt off her shirt one afternoon. She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. I grabbed her arm before she could raise it again and smear mud into her eyes.

"Use this instead," I said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper towel out of my pocket. Petunia looked at it in disgust for a moment before taking it.

"Thanks," she replied, dragging the paper towel across her eyes. "I swear one day I'm going to choke him to death."

"Face it, Tuney, you wouldn't know how."

Now Petunia gave me a wounded look. "Whose side are you on?"

I chewed my lip. Now Edwin was with a group of boys, yelling: "Hey you, get on defense! I want to kick off!"

"I'll tell him to stop doing that," I said after a moment. "Sorry he was being a jerk."

Petunia sniffled and wiped her nose again. "It's not your fault."

Just then there came an ear-piercing shriek from the football field. Petunia nearly jumped. "What was that?" she demanded, looking around agitatedly. The shrieking continued, now intermixed with swearwords. "What've they got up to now?"

I turned. The source of the shrieking was the far end of the field, where - I groaned - Edwin had apparently tackled a boy to the ground. He had pinned him solidly by the waist and appeared to be grabbing the boy's arms, which were twisting and flailing wildly within Edwin's grip. Now the boy began to shout.

"Let go of me, you piece of blood trash! I'll have you screaming for mercy if you so much as lay another finger on me - you _filth! _Unhand me now, or I'll - "

The shouts were promptly muffled as Edwin crushed his chest onto the boy's face. My heart palpitated and I broke into a run.

"Lily! What are you doing!"

"I want him to stop!" I screeched, stumbling. Edwin, picking on my sister. Edwin, picking on some scrawny kid no one knew or cared about. Edwin, Edwin, Edwin.

I came sliding to a halt in an evaporated mud puddle; the boys were rolling around in the soggy dirt a few feet away. "Edwin O'Neill!" I shrieked, grabbing his shirt and yanking. "Get off him, what are you doing!"

"Nothing," he panted, wrestling the boy's thin, wiry arms back to the ground. "He just wouldn't play defense, that's all."

"So what?" I demanded. "You can't force him!"

Edwin released the boy's arms; now the boy lay there, breathing hard, sneering at Edwin with utmost contempt. "He was just skulking around the edge of the field, I caught him spying on us. Thought I'd make him play, see if he's got any guts, the little git."

I glanced down at the boy's face. Stringy, overgrown black hair; hooked nose; thin lips; sallow skin; sunken cheeks. He looked like he hadn't eaten a decent meal in a week. His eyes were livid. I rolled my eyes and kicked Edwin in the thigh, smearing mud over his shorts. "What did you want him for, stupid?" I said disgustedly. "He probably can't even kick the ball, and now you're wrestling him? What the bloody hell is your problem?"

Edwin grinned and stood up. "Watch your mouth, Evans," he said, licking his lips. "Teachers don't like little girls who swear."

I spat at Edwin's feet. "Go to _hell."_

Now the other boys laughed. "Ooh, I'm so scared," Edwin taunted. He was still grinning. "My mum says you should come over for dinner tonight. My brother wants to play with you."

"You associate with this scum?" the boy on the ground sneered. Edwin raised his foot, and the boy flinched and covered his face with his arms.

"Ooh, big words," Edwin jeered, raising his foot higher. "Going to out-talk me, are you, you little snit?"

The boy's face contorted with fury. "You have no idea."

"Eh? What was that? I can't hear you!"

"Stop that!" I shouted, and shoved Edwin as hard as I could. The force of it knocked him off the one foot he was standing on, and I fell on top of him, mashing my face into his chest as we landed. He gave a yell and tried to throw me off of him, but I had managed to land on one of his arms and so kept him pinned beneath me. I sat up and shoved my knee over Edwin's pinned elbow, raising my fist. For the first time I saw a flash of fear in his eyes. "If you hit this kid again," I said, breathing hard, "I'll - I'll smash your _bloody face in."_

Edwin's eyes widened, and now I stood up, glaring at all the other boys around me. All of them were staring in awe. A heady feeling had come over me and I felt reckless. "You can all bugger off too," I said loudly. Then I turned around. The boy was still lying on the ground, gawping at me.

I swallowed. My head was spinning a bit. "What's your name?" I demanded.

Hastily the boy got to his feet, wiping his muddy hands on the oversized tweed coat he was wearing. "Severus," he replied, leering at me. "Severus Snape."

"I'm Lily," I said shortly. "Now you might want to get out of here before anything else happens."

Severus gave me a strange look - a cold, scrutinizing look - and then he turned around and skulked off.

"What a weirdo," one of the other boys said. "You ever smell that kid?"

"Yeah," came the reply. "He smells like shit."

I snorted in disgust and walked away.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"What did you do that for?" Petunia hissed, grabbing my arm as I shuffled back to where she was standing. "I saw everything! Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in now?"

"I'm not in any trouble," I said stubbornly, yanking my arm away from her. "Nobody's going to tell anybody. They're all afraid I'll beat them up."

"Which you _know_ you bloody well can't. They're all bigger than you, you got lucky, there's no way you could fight any of them - "

"Ugh, shut up, I don't know what got into me, alright - "

"Here, let's get you cleaned up," Petunia said, pulling me over to the hose mounted on the wall of the school building. She turned the valve and sprayed freezing water over my legs and sandals, causing me to shriek. "Oh, calm down, Lily, it's just a bit of water - "

"It's _cold!" _I yelled, hopping about. "Tuney, that's enough!"

"You've still got mud all over your knees, just hold still. Anyway, _how _did you do that? He's bloody four times your size, and you knocked him over!"

"He was only standing on one foot, he couldn't balance."

"No," Petunia said, looking at me seriously. "He put his foot down at the last second and braced himself, I saw it. You shouldn't have been able to knock him over like that. His leg did something funny - it went all soft or something. I mean it actually _bent backwards."_

I blinked. "What? You mean I broke his leg?"

"No, stupid, he got up and walked away as soon as you left. I mean you did something to him that made him fall over."

I stared at her.

"Come on, Lily, you know you did something," Petunia groaned. "I saw you."

Now I whimpered and slumped back against the brick wall of the school. "Oh, God."

Petunia folded her arms across her chest. "What?"

"They probably all saw that too. Now the whole school is going to think I'm a freak, aren't they?"

Petunia sighed and leaned against the wall beside me. She put her arm around my shoulder. "You _are_ a freak, little sister," she said bitterly. "You're just really, really weird. You make things happen that just shouldn't be able to happen." She paused and gazed wistfully out at the playground. "But don't worry. If anyone picks on you I'll bring the headmaster down on them. Just don't get into any more fights or he won't think you're such a sweet little kid anymore."

"I'm not a sweet little kid," I mumbled, staring down at my sopping feet.

"Okay, so maybe you're not," Petunia said. Her voice was strangely high. I looked up. Her jaw was trembling.

A feeling of overwhelming guilt swept over me. So I did the only thing I could think of to do: I hugged her.

Petunia sniffled. "Okay, so maybe you are." Then she pushed me away and made a shooing motion. "Go back to class before you get into even more trouble."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Dinner at Edwin's house was awkward that night, needless to say. I had tried to convince my mother that I had too much homework to go, but she'd immediately sensed my guilt and bullied the story out of me. Upon hearing what I'd done, she gave me the most scathing lecture I'd ever heard and marched me straight to Edwin's house, where she explained to his mother that I had some major apologizing to do. For her part, Edwin's mother seemed taken by surprise that "roughhousing" with her son was even an issue, forgave me on the spot, and summarily insisted on stuffing me with pork chops and broccoli; as for Edwin, he simply smirked and dismissed the whole incident as a freak accident.

"I don't think he takes it personally," Noah said after dinner, moving one of his pawns up a square. "He just acts like a really huge git sometimes."

I stared at the Chess board; no matter how hard I studied it, I had no idea what to do. I moved a knight. "I don't hate him. I just don't understand why he had to bully that kid."

"Oh, Severus Snape? Yeah, he's a weird one. He practically begs to get beat up, running around calling people 'Muggle' and stuff."

"What does 'Muggle' even mean, anyway?"

"Dunno. Probably something he made up that's supposed to be racist, but I've never seen him use it on the Chinese kids. Or even the black ones."

"Bloody git. He should at least come up with a better insult, God. One people could actually understand."

"Snape's a creeper. I saw him picking the wings off flies once."

I rolled my eyes. "All boys do that."

"Snape's just weird. You should probably stay away from him. There's something dodgy about him."

"I guess."

Noah moved his Queen and grinned. "Check. Did you really threaten to punch my brother in the face, by the way?"

I blushed, both because I couldn't believe I'd let him put me in check again, and because I couldn't believe I'd sworn so badly at Edwin. "Yeah. I think I was in a bad mood. And I hate you! Here. I'll put this pawn - " I thrust it forward for effect - "right here."

"Aha! Checkmate!" Noah crowed, knocking my king over with his bishop. "I am officially the Chess Lord!"

I groaned. "You always beat me."

"No, no, I'm teaching you how to play. Everybody loses a lot in the beginning." Noah picked up his pieces and reset the board. "But we can stop playing if you want."

I sighed. "Nah, I'm fine. Let's play another game. I'm going to beat you if it's the last thing I do."

Noah grinned. "You're on." And he pushed a pawn forward, a certain undefinable something glinting in his eye.

We continued playing Chess for another two hours, right up until the moment my mother appeared at the O'Neills' doorstep to pick me up. Noah won every single time, often in less than ten moves, and with each loss I became increasingly convinced that I would never be able to out-strategize him. Being the kinder of the O'Neill twins, he stopped rubbing it in after the first round and began giving me advice on what I ought to do to bolster up the defense on my side of the board. And then, in what I would later remember as the most crushing victory ever of Noah O'Neill's quiet and utterly precocious astuteness, he told me that Chess was like physics: You could predict the outcome based on the rules each person played by. If one player believed he'd lose, he was more likely to misjudge the other's intentions. And if he did that, he'd predictably misfire, like a catapult manned by a jittery soldier. A person playing Chess was really fighting a mental war with his opponent.

It had never even occurred to me that a Chess player was supposed to figure out whether his opponent was afraid of losing, much less how to make him nervous and stupid. As it was, I hadn't the faintest idea what people were talking about when they said the word "physics". I figured there were math and mechanics involved. But what Noah was talking about - that was beyond the reach of my imagination.

From that day on, I blanched at the thought of playing Chess. Noah had taught me that I could not rely on anyone to be stupid for me; if I was to win anything, it would have to be by my wits and strength alone. And that I was not sure I would ever be able to do.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I skipped the mail room the morning after James and Sirius's test flight and opted for the post office instead, as I didn't feel like seeing Hestia the day after bleeding out three obituaries in a row. Surely she would tell me to be thankful that I was alive to be the one writing the obituaries, rather than one of the people being written about in such perfunctory manner. I didn't want to hear about my good fortune; I wanted a day off from feeling guilty and I did not want to be backhandedly reminded of my apparent immaturity. Hestia Jones could shut up and stuff her resentful face with cake for all I cared.

I folded the obituaries gently into a single envelope, which I addressed in my most careful penmanship, and then left before the postmaster could ask me to select an owl to carry my letters. I did not care to look at birds of prey either.

The breakfast room was buzzing when I arrived at Headquarters. A few heads turned when I walked in - I suppose I only noticed because I was feeling particularly sensitive to how people were looking at me that morning. The window shades were up, the lights were on; the lie detector at the door was humming quietly to itself. My nerves tingled with the darting of individual voices in and out of the din. Aimlessly I made my way across the room.

"Lily," came a voice. "Hey, Lily, wait."

I turned around and stared for a second. Peter Pettigrew, disheveled and looking as though he'd gained some weight, was pushing through the crowd of breakfasting Aurors, Charm Breakers, janitors, trainees, and fresh-faced recruits. I hadn't seen Peter in months; what was more, neither James, Sirius, nor Remus had been able to get a definitive word out of him during his absence.

"Peter," I said, a bit dumbly. "Wow. How - er - how are you? It's been a while."

"Yeah, I know." Peter shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked nervously on his heels a few times. "I - I had to get my mum and dad into hiding and all. Found out the Death Eaters had a, uh - that they had a lead on them. But you know my mum and dad. Bit senile nowadays." He smiled weakly.

I tilted my head. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. I mean, now it is, anyway. I think. Have you seen the guys?"

"Not this morning."

"Oh," Peter said, looking even more nervous. "Well, I was hoping I'd be able to get in on the dueling lessons Moody's apparently giving on his off-hours."

I narrowed my eyes slightly. "Who told you Moody was giving dueling lessons, Pete? Nobody's seen hide or hair of you since December."

Peter scratched his nose. "I forgot his name. Tallish blond bloke, I think. Mentioned it over chips at the Leaky Cauldron. I was there the other night."

I looked around. There were several tall blond men in the room. I doubted any of them had spoken to Peter within the past several weeks, but decided not to push it. "Ah. Well, you should probably talk to someone higher up in command than me if you want to learn how to duel."

Peter's eyes widened slightly. "I don't think they'd take me seriously."

"Why not? You're one of us, aren't you?"

"Yes, but - I just don't think - "

"Just explain what's been going on. I'm sure someone will understand."

Peter looked at me uncertainly, almost incredulously. I sighed inwardly, but chose to put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm serious, Peter. Of course people won't take you seriously if you're going around acting like you've just killed their dog or something. But if you relax you'll blend right in. Really. You're one of us. We all understand having to go into hiding around here."

Peter seemed to mull this over for a moment; he ruffled his hair and sighed. Then he straightened up and gave me an awkward smile. "Well," he said, turning to leave. "Thanks, Lily. I guess I'll see you 'round."

I stared at him for a moment, puzzled. "Sure thing," I muttered to his retreating back. Then I shook my head and reached for a cup of coffee. "Take care, right." _What a weird kid. _

Just as I was thinking that, though, I felt a strange force of something - perhaps that of a distant memory - pull my gaze in a different direction: In the corner of the room, behind the coffee pots and half-empty fruit trays, stood Severus Snape. He was looking intently into his palm, shoulders hunched, lips moving indistinguishably. Then, as suddenly as I'd noticed him, his eyes snapped up and widened as they caught mine; but in a split second it was over, and Snape turned. With a single sharp _swoosh _of his cloak he was gone.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Oddly enough, this was what prompted me to go looking for Alastor Moody myself. Though I didn't know what I wanted Moody to do or say when I found him, having re-created the memory of the fight in which I had defended Snape from Edwin O'Neill nine hours prior had left a fighting taste in my mouth. I thought I might ask him if he'd include me in whatever he was doing with James. I fully expected him to tell me to go away and let him train the people who would actually matter on missions and undercover operations - why would he bother with an uncoordinated girl whose sole purpose was now to write what were little more than advertisements on the dead? - but I continued to his office anyway. For the most part I think I expected him not to be there at all.

Moody's office was at the center of a long hallway, the door tightly shut. The roving glass eye mounted over the knocker stopped its rolling and fixed its gaze squarely on my head. I blanched.

A moment later the door swung open. I froze. It was Moody.

"Well? What do you want?" he barked.

I fidgeted for a second. "I - er - "

"Lily?" came a voice. James appeared in the doorway, wand in hand, his hair singed. His face was contorted in an expression of poorly controlled pain. "What's up?"

Moody twirled his wand, staring coldly at me. "What happened? Your houseplant die?"

"I - actually," I said, drawing my wand as well, "I was hoping you might be able to show me a few things about dueling. Sorry if I interrupted you."

Moody worked his jaw. He looked at James. "You want me demonstrating dueling maneuvers on your woman?"

James paled. "I trust you wouldn't hurt her."

"Oh, who do you think you're talking to," Moody growled. "Bloody kids these days. Alright, Evans, get in here."

Timidly I stepped into the room and shut the door behind me; no sooner had the lock clicked than Moody had shoved me against the wall, pointing his wand straight at my head. James shouted and lunged - and then went crashing backwards as Moody cast a lightning-quick Shield Charm in his direction. Moody licked his lips and re-adjusted. I stared at him in terror.

"What are you going to do about this?" he asked, his eyes boring into mine.

"LET HER GO!" James roared, lunging again. "_EXPELLIARMUS!_"

Moody's wand didn't budge; James crumpled to the floor with a shout. Moody shoved his knee against my stomach. "First lesson," he said quietly. "What do you do when I've got your throat?"

"Well," I choked, trembling, "I'm pretty sure I'd try to peel your hands off my throat, for starters."

"So do it!" Moody barked. I complied and found myself struggling frantically; I was having trouble breathing. Moody only crushed me harder against the wall. I felt my wand caving dangerously into my stomach; I tensed my abdominal muscles out of fear that it would break right there against my skin and rupture an organ.

_"Wrong,_ Evans!" I struggled harder. "In the time you've spent flopping around like a fish, I could've killed you twice over! What are you going to _do?"_

With a scream I threw my free arm over my head to snatch at Moody's wand, which he promptly moved out of the way; while he was bringing his wand hand back up I grabbed the arm that was choking me and twisted it as hard as I could, thrashing violently. Moody simply let me shove him, landing with perfect balance a few steps away. He raised his wand again.

"You're lucky you're not dead," he said pointedly. "What now?"

Shaking, I fumbled for my wand.

_"Faster,_ Evans!"

_"STUPEFY!" _I shrieked, stepping towards him. He deflected the spell effortlessly. In a rage I lashed my wand at him, over and over again: _"Incendio! Confundo! Alarte Ascendare! - CONFRINGO!"_

"Lily, stop! You're just - "

And then I felt myself being blasted off my feet, so hard that I had to snatch the overhead light fixture by its cable to avoid crashing into the ceiling. I hung there for a moment, hyperventilating, before I realized that Moody had placed a levitation charm on me. Trembling violently, I released the lamp and floated gently back down to the ground.

Moody pointed his wand at me and muttered a few incantations. I felt something warm spread over my body, upward and downward from the sore point at my throat. I collapsed against the wall, my face in my hands.

"At least you knew not to run at me," Moody said roughly. "That's a start. But don't _ever _just throw a bunch of curses like that unless you want to blow yourself the hell up." Now he jerked his head towards James, who had been watching with an expression of barely contained rage. "Come on, Potter, you're up. Evans, keep your head down and watch."

Snapping his robes, James drew his wand took up what looked like some sort of dueling stance, his left foot forward and his feet about a shoulder width apart. He raised his wand to Moody's eye level, teeth bared.

"That's the standard dueling position," Moody said. "You come back to that position after every spell. If your wand isn't spitting fire, it's pointed straight at your opponent's face. And your feet are always one step apart, ready to run, dodge, or sidestep. Your feet aren't balanced, you're not alive."

I watched in silence as they circled each other. "Now, if you expect to get out of a duel alive," Moody went on, keeping his wand pointed straight at James's forehead, "you need to - _ANTICIPATE!" _he bellowed, sending arcs of flame flying in James's direction.

Not a split second had gone by before James roared some countercurse I couldn't make out and sent a ten-foot high wall of ice daggers rushing back. With a slash of his wand, Moody vanished the daggers into a single gust of wind.

"Stand down," he ordered.

Breathing hard, James whipped his wand back and dropped his arm to his side.

Now Moody nodded. "That was pretty good, Potter. But if you had really been thinking, you would have cast the third variant of _Agua Eructo_ and used it to strangle me in half the time it took for your knives to cross the room."

James set his jaw. His face was white with fury. "Which one was that again, _sir?"_

"That's the one you learned during your sixth year at Hogwarts, Christ. The jet of water you could turn into a lasso to water your lawn, remember?"

James looked toward the ceiling as if to say, _Well, fuck you too, _and wiped his wand on his sleeve with so much force that smoke and sparks shot out the end. "Right. Of course. Thank you."

"So that's your first lesson, Evans," Moody said. "Rule number one: If you're in a position of disadvantage, never waste time struggling - either plead for your life, take the other guy's wand, or set up a trap. Rule number two: Always reset to your original dueling stance. Rule number three: Unless your opponent has no bloody idea how to hold a wand, you win on the counterattack. Wait for him to strike, then counter. While he's busy dealing with your counter, you hit him upside the head with something he's not ready for. Repeat as needed. Then get the hell out of there. Got it?"

I nodded. My whole body felt cold.

"Good. Now scram. Go take a break. Eat some food. You could use it. Come back with Potter when he has his next session. I won't rough you up so badly next time."

Wordlessly, James watched me leave. The expression on his face was anguish.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I woke the following morning to the sound of muffled thumps coming from the next room. The covers were pushed back on James's side of the bed, from which he was noticeably absent; his slippers lay abandoned by the door. Nonplussed, I pulled on my pajamas and shuffled into the living room.

James was doing push-ups in the middle of the floor, his feet under the coffee table, his shirt wadded up and tossed off to the side. He was red in the face and sweating lightly.

"'Morning," he said from between gritted teeth.

"Hi," I replied, tilting my head. "What exactly are you doing?"

James exhaled noisily and pushed himself upward. "Thought that would be pretty apparent."

"Maybe a better question would be what this is for."

He sat back on his knees and cracked his knuckles. I shuddered. "To keep you having sex with me, obviously," he said flatly. "You like muscles, right?"

I raised an eyebrow. James laughed dryly and mopped his forehead with his shirt. "After you left, Moody yelled at me to 'grow some bloody muscles'. Said I'm a skinny lout who wouldn't be able to last in a fight to save my life."

"Are you serious?"

James smiled bitterly and rubbed his triceps. They looked rather nicely defined to me. "Apparently I need to get in better form if I expect to kill Death Eaters with a wand."

"Yes, because it takes a lot of bloody brawn to cast a Stunning Spell," I said, kneeling beside him. "Ugh, James, you're sweating on the carpet."

"Hey, hey, I know _Scourgify_ just as well as you do. Anyway, we lost a person a few weeks ago because he apparently got tired in the middle of a chase and couldn't fight off a wandless Death Eater who was trying to choke him. Didn't have the energy." James examined his fists, then looked up at me. His face was deathly serious. "I've been thinking you and I should practice a few things together."

I narrowed my eyes. "You mean you think we should fight each other?"

Now James looked at me as though I'd lost my mind. He gave a harsh laugh. "God, no," he said. "Are you kidding? I'd probably kill you - "

"Oh, we'll see about that," I shot back. I shoved him; he hardly flinched. "Try me, arsehole. What do you know about fighting that I don't?"

"Well, for one thing," James said ironically, "Moody had you pinned against the wall with one leg and a finger and you can't even shove me, so I'd say you're at a disadvantage. "

"Don't push it," I growled.

"Oh, Lily," James said, pulling me into his arms, "you're so cute when you're angry. You're breaking my heart."

"I am not _cute_ when I'm angry! And let go of me, you smell!"

"Yes you are," James murmured, kissing me. He buried his face in my neck and breathed deeply. "You are unbearably cute. It's terrible. We need to fix that. I can't let you get beaten up by some fucking nasty old man again. I swear, Lily, if Moody hadn't let you rest after what he did to you, I'd have killed him." His voice was hoarse. "I'd have smashed his fucking face in."

My stomach twisted. I put my arms around him and pressed my face into his shoulder. I had no words.

"You need to build up some better strength," James murmured. He exhaled and pushed me back to arm's length, his eyes sweeping from my head to my toes. "Will you come with me today and run a few miles?"

"A few miles?" I repeated.

"You can do it, trust me. We'll only run three. You can stop at two if you have to."

"Well," I said. There was no way I could run three miles, least of all without puking. I'd be lucky if I made it past one - which, I realized, only proved James's point.

"Lily," he said pleadingly.

I swallowed. "Okay. I'll run with you."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Running with James was a disaster, of course. He Transfigured a pair of shoes for each of us into running sneakers - a feat I had to give him credit for, as he managed to approximate my size well enough to make my sneakers bearable - and promptly chose what must have been one of the muddiest, most uneven, most heavily slushed-over trails in all of Britain for us to run on. Our starting point was a dirt road running through what looked like a wheat field lying fallow for the winter, half-submerged in melting ice and snow; from there we slogged through what was most definitely more than three miles of muddy storm ditches, patches of naked trees, and scrubby graveyards. We paused for a few minutes when I was suddenly forced to bend over a bush and vomit; but then we were off again, with James in the lead and I staggering along ten or so paces behind. Towards the end I tripped over an exposed root and twisted my ankle, so that I hobbled the last half-mile while James simply plowed onward. When we finally finished, he congratulated me on surviving a full four miles, and informed me that we'd run again in two days' time, regardless of the weather. I told him to kill himself. He merely shrugged.

It was during these early cross-training sessions that I sincerely hated James; I began to understand, for the first time, why he had been captain of the Quidditch team. He simply did not succumb to the prolonged physical pain of training. Rather, he seemed to thrive on it. A manic glint came into his eye when he was in pain; and the more intense his pain was, the harder he pushed.

"James," I gasped one afternoon, struggling through my eighth set of sit-ups, "don't you think we should give it a rest?"

"Not yet," he replied, grimacing. "This is how fighters are made. You have to be able to take the pain."

"Sure, sure…I just…we have other things to take care of too."

"Suck it up for ten more minutes. And bloody fucking push it this time."

Furious, I got on my fists and did push-ups until my elbows buckled and my knuckles bled. Afterward, James kissed me on my sweaty forehead and rubbed my hands with aloe vera. The muscles in my arms, shoulders, stomach, and legs burned - and, for the first time I could remember - were beginning to feel hard to the touch.

x.x.x.x.x.x

_March 16, 1979_

_11:24 PM_

…_All the same. _

_I'm an obituary writer, not an Auror. Not an assassin. Not a spy or a healer or even a bloody scout. I'm an obituary writer. _

_I think I'd be a terrible fighter. _

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

**Author's Note: **Hey all. Thanks for reading. And thanks for your lovely reviews on the last chapter! Your comments always make my day. :) I'm sorry it took me so long to get this one out. The short of it is that graduate school - and therefore research - is now in full swing. I do a lot of lab work these days. Smeh.

Anyway, I'm still very motivated to keep this story going. I've got it outlined from start to finish; it just needs to be written. Whether I can deliver or not depends on how forgiving my classes and research schedule are at any given time, as I have very little time off. I'll post as often as I can, and I'll always respond to signed reviews via PM.

Lastly, to _Nicholeintheclouds: _Yes! I have read _The Bell Jar_. I tend to gravitate towards books like that - _Girl, Interrupted_ was another favorite of mine. Your review left me stupidly, incoherently happy. Thank you. :)

Cheers,

- Silverspinner


	9. Camaraderie, Thy Brother

**- Chapter 8: Camaraderie, Thy Brother - **

As much as I relished not having to work sixteen-hour days between the mail room and King's Cross anymore, there was something about my new life as the designated obituary writer that felt too soft to abide. Staring at the train tracks waiting for disaster to strike had at least made me feel like I was doing my part to protect the safety of democracy and innocence, such as they were; I'd never doubted the importance of preventing the Dark Lord from usurping control of our railroads. And as a mail clerk, I had at least known that I was helping to keep the Order's correspondences safe from prying eyes. But as an obituary writer - all I was doing was calling attention to the people who had died opposing the Death Eaters. Paying my respects, I supposed, but only from a safe distance.

This was what drove me back to the mail room the day after Moody's dueling lesson, with the bruises on my throat just beginning to color up. Hestia Jones was there as usual, sipping her coffee and looking thoroughly harassed. There was a huge stack of letters levitating in front of her, all with their envelopes punched open. She appeared to have been reading all of them.

"Morning, Hestia," I said cautiously, eyeing the floating letters. "Can I help you with anything?"

Hestia looked preoccupied. She twirled the tip of her wand hesitantly over the face of what appeared to be a letter between friends. "Yes," she muttered. "There. Get to the pile on that desk over there and check through everything. Get your wand out too. I found traces of some sort of spying charm on a good handful of letters this morning; the owls were all getting agitated from carrying them. I think someone at the post office has joined the Dark Lord."

My heart thudded. "Really."

"Really, really. While you were gone someone started using open letters to watch people in their parlors. You're going to need to put a masking charm on yourself before you look through any of those."

I glanced around the mail room. "I'm assuming you masked this whole room, right?"

"Yes. Every inch of it, as soon as I noticed how nervous the owls were. Put silencing charms on all the letters, too. I'm not sure if I was quick enough, though. Someone might have already got a lead on us."

My jaw went slack. "So why haven't you packed everything up and blasted this whole place to pieces?"

"Too obvious," Hestia replied, looking a little manic. "They know how we process our mail now, but we can't let them know we've found out. We've got to move this operation quietly. I reported everything before you got here. We're moving to another place tonight. But first we need to decontaminate all the mail from today."

I nodded, feeling nauseated. All of those letters were between members of the Order. I took out my wand, cast every containment charm I knew on the waiting envelopes, and set to work scanning them.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"So how's that obituary business going for you?" Hestia asked some time later, still blearily focused on her letters. "Not too badly, I'm guessing."

"Yeah, actually, it's a pretty soft job," I replied dryly. "Mostly I scribble and try to do it with enough pretense to make it bearable."

Hestia made a little noise - whether it was a noise of contempt or bemusement, I couldn't tell. "You could quit at any time, you know."

"I'm not really sure why I don't."

"Then quit, right?"

I chewed my lip as I ran the tip of my wand over a letter. No sign of any spying charms. I moved on to the next one. "I just feel compelled to keep doing it."

"Well, why?"

"I have no idea. Really. Anyway, let's change the subject, shall we?"

Hestia took another swig of coffee and zapped one of her letters. "Well, here's some news you'll be interested in. They've moved more than half of the owl shifters on to different jobs. Someone higher up decided they were too experienced to be wasted on the train station."

I froze. "So who are they putting in?"

"New people, I guess. Mostly fresh Hogwarts graduates looking for something to do now that their families have been blown up by the Death Eaters and their day jobs are under siege, if what I heard was right. I expect it's very unhappy down there."

Numbly, I spread a stack of letters into the air before me.

"It sounded like they had enough people to cover the station," Hestia added. "I don't think you'll need to go back."

"No," I said quickly. "No, I think I do have to go back, at least for a while. They're going to need someone to show them the ropes. Maybe it'll raise morale."

Hestia peered strangely at me over her coffee mug. "I hate to say it, Lily, but of everyone I knew who worked the train station shift, you were the least cheerful about it."

I groaned inwardly. "Right, but I'm not going to go and whine at them about how terrible it is, Hestia."

She raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything more. Mentally, I kicked myself; who was I kidding - how did I know any of the recruits on my old shift would even want to listen to me?

I went back to scanning letters, waving my wand over each envelope as it circled past me. Thunder rolled beyond the windows, a deep, heavy rumble. A gust of wind howled and the room darkened. Then, as suddenly as the wind had come, it began to rain. Thick drops lashed heavily against the window pane. It was the first rain of spring.

x.x.x.x.x.x

The train station was lit just as I remembered it - bright with a kind of cheer and adventure that shook you at the base of your heart. High, arching ceilings glowed with warm incandescent light, taking the chill out of goodbye and injecting hello with a laughing, tearful, and altogether inflated shot of relief. The food vendors were still open at eight o'clock, selling sandwiches and chips and tea; souvenir shops were only just beginning to close. A healthy density of travelers were still milling about with their luggage, giving the place a sense of safety. But beyond the atrium, past the last arching columns and ticket booths, the warm light tapered into the shadows, gleaming almost imperceptibly off the dark and serpentine bodies of the trains.

I cast a Silencing Charm around the group of recruits I'd gathered before me. I'd led them into one of the staff lavatories - a men's loo, to be exact - and sealed the door with a temporary Concealment Charm.

The lot of them looked exhausted and thoroughly unaccustomed to it. None of them seemed to have cared enough to muster the effort to ask me why I was leading them all into an unwashed lavatory. I took this to mean that the majority of them had not volunteered for this shift specifically, and that they must have only been working it for a few days or a week. I cleared my throat and leaned awkwardly against a grimy porcelain sink.

"Alright, everyone," I said. A handful of them looked up. "I worked this shift not too long ago, and I hated it. It was dull, depressing, and exhausting. It felt kind of existentialist sometimes. And it is a lousy job, so I can understand if some of you have started to hate it too."

One of the boys - he looked to be about eighteen - nodded slowly. A couple of the others noticed this and nodded as well. A young woman about my own age made a noise of agreement.

"However," I said loudly, before anyone could pipe up, "this is really important. Don't ever forget how important you are. Every night, our mission is to make sure no Death Eaters can sneak into this place and rig the station while we're smuggling refugees out of the country. It is our job to get as many people to safety as possible and to keep the Death Eaters out of the trains and supply lines. The Dark Lord wants nothing more than to take over our infrastructure. He's a dictator, and dictators work by controlling countries by their joints. This train station is crucial to protecting our trade lines and getting people out of the country quickly and quietly. Guarding it like this is boring and painful, but it's like that because the Death Eaters know they can't easily get past us. So they don't often try. But if we let up, they'll take this place by storm. "

Some of the recruits nodded wearily; others sighed. Another coughed. The walls of the lavatory hummed as a train roared into the station. I glanced at the clock.

"So you're on in thirty minutes. You know the drill. Now go and get yourselves some coffee and food as you're taking up your positions. It may not sound like a lot, but you'll be glad you ate something if at two AM you're suddenly in a skirmish."

There was a rusting of coats and boots as the recruits picked themselves up and made for the door. Most of them were still drooping tiredly, though some were making an obvious effort to hide their exhaustion. Quietly, I removed the Silencing and Concealing Charms from the lavatory and followed the recruits onto the platforms.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I took up my post at the coffee stand near Platform 8, as I had the night I'd begun writing my memoirs in earnest. The clock gazed unchanged over the resting trains, its face a pale moon above an army of silently moving shadows. Its chrome hands flashed as the nine o'clock train hissed out of the station, and I remembered why I had imagined death in every _click _and _tock _of its arms.

A dark figure was walking towards me, cloak billowing. I adjusted my hat and put my feet up next to the cash register, pretending to nap.

The figure was Severus Snape. His face looked almost blue in the cold, sparse light of the platform. Impassively he laid a handful of coins on the counter. "One shot of espresso, please," he said, not looking at me.

Wordlessly I stood up and turned on the espresso machine, watching him. He didn't move. I finished pouring the shot and passed it to him over the cash register. "Thank you. Have a good night." I turned to sit back down.

But Snape didn't move; his mouth was twitching. Narrowing my eyes, I leaned forward in my chair, clasping my hands between my knees. "What's up?"

For a long moment Snape didn't respond; he merely stood there with his jaw set, lips pressed tightly together. Suddenly he turned to face me.

"Turn the silver coin over five times when you have a private moment," he said quietly, his eyes roving over my face and torso. "You should find something of great interest."

I stared coldly back at him. "What are you after?"

Snape's eyes flashed, and he leaned against the counter now, bringing his face so close to mine that I flinched backward. A strand of overgrown black hair brushed my cheek, sending an electric shock down my spine. He was sneering slightly. "For once in your life, Lily," he said tightly, "trust me." Then he whirled and strode away. He did not look back.

For a moment I simply stood there, slack-jawed. Then I wrenched my hands off the counter as if I'd been burned.

_Did he just make a pass at me? _

_...What the hell is he doing here in the first place?_

Shaking, I opened the cash register and shoved the coins he'd given me into my pockets. Whatever he had hidden in them, I didn't want it falling into anyone else's hands. Snape had been at Headquarters yesterday morning - but now that I thought about it - I didn't remember him ever being inducted into the Order of the Phoenix. The last I words had ever spoken to him were an accusation of being a Death Eater.

I gazed around the station, eyes straining for any sign of him - but no matter. He had vanished.

x.x.x.x.x.x

For the next twenty hours, I was unable to think of anything but Snape's appearance at the train station. I refused to look at the coins he had given me, the way a freshly divorced woman might refuse to wear jewelry given to her by her ex-husband; as soon as I arrived back in my flat, I threw them into the bottom drawer of my desk, where I habitually sent such things as unsent letters and old sales receipts to languish while I put off ever looking at them again. I couldn't think clearly about why he would suddenly reappear - in Headquarters, no less - and then find me while I was working _a shift I had quit weeks ago._

If I knew Snape at all (and that much I was certain of), he had not found me at King's Cross by accident. Maybe he had been lucky getting into Headquarters - perhaps he didn't have a Dark Mark yet? - but then again, it was just as likely that he had planned the entire thing. It would be just like him to sneak his way past the rest of the Order of the Phoenix. Just like him.

_But for what?_ I thought, pacing about my bedroom. Furniture and windows and curtains swam in front of me. I didn't believe for one second that he could possibly want to help me. Snape's motives concerning me had never been pure.

Swearing under my breath, I kicked the desk drawer shut, snatched a towel from my laundry rack, and stripped off to take a shower. When I came out, an owl was beating its wings against my window.

Still dripping wet, I lifted the window pane. The owl swooped in and landed on the back of my chair. With a bored glance in my direction it stuck out its foot, dangling the fresh envelope before me. I removed the letter from the owl's talon and shooed it back out the window.

_We respectfully request an obituary for _

_Silverman, Orion [Muggle]_

_on behalf of his wizarding relatives [names withheld] by the date of March 22, 1979. Thank you for your promptness. _

_- Cygna Mallard_

_Assistant Editor_

_The Daily Prophet_

I groaned. _Duck lady strikes again_. I could just imagine Cygna Mallard smirking each time she raised her quill and signed her name in that bloody purple ink. There was no way "Cygna Mallard" was her true name - she was simply adopting a _nom de plume_ for a shade of glamour, and she either had a fantastic sense of humor, or she was haughty twat who had failed to realize just what her name alluded to.

I tossed the letter onto my desk; I would deal with it, I decided, only after I had gotten at least a marginal amount of sleep. And with that I threw myself into my bed and yanked the covers over my face.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"So you got another obituary request, did you?"

I looked up. The door to my room had swung part way open; James was outside, apparently shuffling something large around the corner. I heard something that sounded like the fluttering of a caged bird and put my quill down, fingertips suddenly tingling.

_He didn't. …Did he?_

A moment later, James stepped around the doorjamb. To my consternation and horror, the fluttering I had heard was exactly what I had thought it was; James was holding a large wire cage containing none other than a medium-sized Screech Owl. The owl hooted indignantly as James bumped the door frame and set the cage down.

"Sorry about the rough ride, buddy," he said to the owl. "I know, I know, nobody's a gentleman these days. Hoot at me, I get it." Then he straightened up and grinned a bit sheepishly at me.

"James," I said slowly. "You didn't buy this owl for me, did you?"

He blinked. "Er," he said hesitantly. "Should I not have?"

My stomach sank. I sighed and rubbed my temples, gazing vexedly at the owl preening itself in the cage before me. "What moved you to do that?" I asked. My voice was slightly higher than usual.

"I just - well." Now James looked hurt, and his cheeks were coloring up. "I saw the disaster in the mail room after you left, Lily. I mean, obviously you know the post office isn't safe anymore. But I didn't think you'd, you know, stop using it…so I decided to buy you an owl. To keep your mail safe. And make your life easier."

I winced. When he explained it like that it sounded eminently reasonable - which it was. In fact James was absolutely right. The only problem was that I dreaded ever touching that owl.

"Come on, Lily," James said, with a hint of a plea in his voice. "Look at this guy. He's bloody cute."

Shakily, I stood up and walked over to James. "Yes," I replied, putting my arms around him. "He is really cute. Thank you." I kissed him and rested my head on his shoulder. "I understand what you were doing. And you were right. I'd have to be stupid to keep sending everything through the post office."

James tightened his arms around me, gently stroking the back of my neck. He didn't say anything.

"Hey, hey, relax," I said softly. "What are you so worried about?"

He made a muffled noise that sounded like a laugh and pressed his cheek into my hair. "Absolutely nothing." Then he pulled back and gave me a little smile. "I think you should give him a name."

I looked down at the owl and blew out a breath. "Yeah, I should, shouldn't I." I knelt before the cage and gazed at the owl. He cocked his head at me and stared back.

"So I'm Lily," I murmured, reaching through the wires and picking up a piece of cuttlebone. I held it up and offered it to the owl, who chirped curiously, took it in his beak, and began to gnaw. "You look like a Noah to me."

The owl hooted once and went back to gnawing the cuttlebone.

"What happened to that kid, anyway?" James asked.

"Noah O'Neill, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"He had a raging crush on me until I was about fourteen. Then he met a nice Muggle girl and went on his merry way. I think now he's at Uni studying some kind of engineering."

James knelt beside me to gaze at Noah the Owl. "Engineering, huh," he said.

"Yeah. You know. What they call designing and testing all the stuff we just build by magic."

James made a small noise of bemusement. Noah the Owl gripped the cuttlebone with one talon and began picking at a shred of meat hanging off the end.

"So you bought him from that Mongolian shopkeeper, I assume," I said after a time.

A look of surprise flickered across James's face. "You know him?"

"Yeah, actually, I was in his shop a few days ago looking at owls. He has this portal into some field out in the middle of nowhere and apparently trains eagles and hawks and whatnot there. He showed me this one hawk he'd been training a while. The hawk killed a Great Horned Owl and started eating it about five feet in front of me."

James's eyes widened._ "Really? _That's brilliant, he never showed me anything like that!"

I gave a little laugh. "No, I mean - that's why I didn't buy an owl from him. I know that sounds crazy."

"Yeah," James said fervently. "Man, Lily, you got to see a falconer in the field, and you didn't tell me about it - "

" - I'm sorry, I just had a lot on my mind. It's not personal. Really."

"Right, dead people and all. I remember," James nodded. "Anyway, I guess I should get going soon. I'm meeting with the guys at the Leaky Cauldron in a bit to catch up now that the shift patrol has officially sacked us all. Want to come?"

"Sure," I said awkwardly. "Isn't Peter going to be there, too?"

"Yeah. In fact that's one reason we're all heading out. Old times' sake."

"It doesn't bother you that he was gone for three months?"

Now James smiled ironically. "Let's not go there."

Noah the Owl paused in his gnawing for a moment and scrutinized us both. My stomach flipped with the sudden urge to tell James about my run-in with Severus Snape earlier that morning, but for whatever reason, I kept silent.

x.x.x.x.x.x

The Leaky Cauldron was piping with activity that night, the bar an aisle of raucous conversation and each table a shortstop of political or personal discourse. It was still relatively early, so the alcohol was only just beginning to flow; the air was rich with the smell of sandwiches, fried fish, chips, butterbeer, and firewhiskey. The lights were low, and somewhere on the far end of the bar, a piano was being played with gusto.

James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and I had secured a booth next to a slightly drafty window, plates of sandwiches, chips, and battered onions spread before us. Each of us had ordered a shot of firewhiskey and a butterbeer on Sirius's insistence that we celebrate Peter's return, and indeed, Sirius was delivering quite a speech:

"To our best mate Wormtail, who hath wreaked glory and havoc at our sides all through his noble Hogwarts career," Sirius drawled, raising his firewhiskey with vigor as an ugly March wind beat insistently against the window, "I raise a toast! To him we are ever grateful," he continued, "for putting up with our she-hooliganisms detention after detention, and for paying us back with many more unnecessary detentions himself every time he got caught and turned us in."

James, Remus, and I exchanged glances. Peter gripped his firewhiskey, cheeks burning. In a flash of intuition I realized Sirius was already verging on drunk, if he wasn't there already - he must have had several drinks before we had even arrived. Seeming to read my thoughts, he smirked."Hear, hear!" And with that he knocked the whiskey back.

The rest of us glanced at each other again, Peter looking terribly chagrinned and Remus looking as though he wanted to shrink beneath the table.

"Hey, what's the holdup?" Sirius asked, flashing a toothy smile. "Eh?"

There was another long, heavy pause. Finally James rolled his eyes. "Hear, hear," he said, his mouth twitching with disgust. "To the prick at this table with the biggest mouth. Cheers." He drank his whiskey in one go. Remus, Peter, and I followed reluctantly.

After swallowing, Peter coughed and made a face. "Anyone have a chaser?"

"That's what the butterbeer's for, mate," Sirius replied, slapping Peter on the back. "Goes down well after that bloody whiskey, doesn't it?"

"Right," Peter mumbled, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He drummed his fingers nervously on the tabletop. "So. How have you all been, anyway? Been a while."

"Yeah," Remus piped up, before Sirius could speak. "I think we've all been alright. Things were getting tiring for a while, but then we all got moved off the worst of the shift work and now things are looking up." Remus smiled and patted Peter's arm. "You didn't miss much, don't worry."

"That's very true," I chimed in brightly. "Very true. You could have been staying up all night watching the trains come and go. After you memorize the schedule it gets even duller. But - you know. You probably don't need me to tell you that."

"Yeah, you should have seen these guys," Sirius laughed. He was choking slightly on his butterbeer. "All zonked out. Prongs even forgot to renew his _PlayWizard _subscription, can you believe it? _This _prat. I mean really."

"I didn't forget to renew it, stupid, I cancelled it," James said, glaring at Sirius. "Seriously, what's got into you tonight? You're being an arse - " suddenly he stopped and leaned over; Remus muttered something in his ear. Then James groaned and put his face in his hands. "Ugh, Sirius, can we at least keep it together until we get out of here?"

"Keep what together? I'm perfectly fine, thanks."

"Okay. Fine. Sure. Eat your food and ease up on the drinking."

Just then the waitress - a pretty witch in a corset top and a long, swishy black skirt - came round, meticulously balancing a tray of drinks on the palm of her hand. "Hello," she cooed, giving Sirius a coy little smile. Her breasts looked as though they might pop out of her top at any second. "Can I get you gents and lady another round of drinks?"

"Absolutely," Sirius said emphatically, over Remus's protests. "Another round of firewhiskies for everyone. Just put it on my tab. Thank you, mademoiselle." The waitress winked and bit her lip cutely; then she turned and strode off, hips swaying.

James cringed. Sirius grinned. "Come on, mate," he said, slurring a bit, "where's your sense of fun?"

"Yes, Sirius, where _is _his sense of fun?" Peter broke in suddenly. All eyes snapped up to look at him. His face was the picture of sarcasm. "It's your job to make certain the Death Eaters don't take out any more supply trains or kill any more people in their sleep, and you're failing miserably. And now you're - now you're wondering why Prongs isn't looking at witches with their knockers hanging out. While he's sitting with his girlfriend, I mean."

Our table was silent for a moment; James and Sirius were both staring open-mouthed at Peter. Remus snorted back a laugh. As for me, I couldn't decide whether to be offended or not. I coughed. "This girlfriend understands the manly compulsion to look at knockers. The waitress is a tart but so are most women - we just don't show it in polite company. Cheers. Can we all relax now?"

"You heard the woman!" Sirius said gleefully, raising his butterbeer and splashing a good lot of it onto the table. "And cheers, Lily my love, cheers to very impolite company!"

And so it happened that, two hours later, Sirius was roaring drunk and James wasn't too far behind - for each time the waitress circled by, Sirius ordered another round of drinks; and what the rest of us didn't touch, he either palmed off on James or drank himself while Remus and I looked on in a mixture of horror and amusement. For his part, Peter had stopped drinking - per Remus's orders - when he became incapable of normal speech, and was now giggling drunkenly along with James and Sirius's antics. The two of them were impersonating various Death Eaters and unpopular Hogwarts professors with a marvelous combination of zeal and total incoherence.

"Do you have any idea who they're making fun of?" Remus murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

"None at all," I replied, watching as Sirius mimed something not entirely distinguishable but most definitely obscene.

"Maybe it's better they're both smashed out of their minds."

Now Peter took up Sirius's gesture. "Maybe," I said hesitantly. "I don't think I've ever seen either of them this drunk."

"Ah," Remus nodded. "Well, let me fill you in on what happens, then. First, Sirius will make a complete and total arse of himself, as you can see him doing right now."

"Okay, I think I follow," I said dryly. Sirius was impersonating Hitler.

"And while this is happening, James will typically realize Sirius is headed for deep shit if he keeps on at the rate he normally does. So James drinks for Sirius, thinking he's going to spare Sirius's liver, and in the process ends up almost as blasted as Sirius himself. Peter is always the first to pass out. James usually pukes."

I groaned. "Fantastic."

"Don't worry, he's usually lucid enough to know it's about to happen, so he runs outside or whatnot - look, see how he's making an effort not to slur his speech? - He'll just puke in a rose bush and then he'll be fine. Then once his hangover kicks in he'll get cross with Sirius and they'll swear off alcohol for another month or two."

I sighed. "I'll take your word for it."

"Just watch."

"What was Sirius all worked up about, anyway?"

Now Remus grimaced. "He got in a row with his mother over his cousin Andromeda. She was just kicked out of the family for not being a blood maniac. His brother also just disappeared. You know, more of the same."

"More of the same," I repeated in horror. "Really."

But before Remus had a chance to reply, Sirius said something - I couldn't hear what - that for some reason incensed Peter, who gave a yell and took a swing at Sirius's head. James, who was sitting between them, grabbed Peter before he could clock Sirius in the face. Peter thrashed, red in the cheeks. "Leggo o' me, Prongs, he's out of line, has been all night," he slurred furiously, glaring at Sirius with mad, glassy eyes. "Calling me a liar - at least I've got a bloody family to _hide - "_

"Oh, so you want to go below the belt, then, do you?" Sirius said loudly, drawing the stares of several people at the bar. James swore and slapped his hand over Sirius's mouth, but Sirius threw James's hand away and leaned over him, crushing him against the back of the booth and glowering at Peter: "Lemme tell you something, Wormtail - you're a coward. I always knew that about you, sniveling behind us all the time, crying about how the Slytherins were so mean to you - "

"At least I know what's worth fighting for!" Peter yelled back, thrusting a finger in Sirius's face. "Worth fighting for! Do you know what's worth fighting for? Nooooo, you just keep banging your head against a wall, 'I'm Sirius Black, I'm so _noble - '"_

With a shout, Sirius lunged at Peter, fists swinging at his jaw; but James intercepted him and shoved him clean out of the booth. Immediately Remus jumped to his feet and grabbed Sirius to restrain him, hooking his arms under Sirius's and clasping his hands behind Sirius's head. "Okay, mate, that's enough," Remus bit out, struggling to hold Sirius still. "We're leaving. Prongs, Lily, get them out of here. I'll stay back and pay the bill."

"Unhand me, Remus," Sirius seethed, teeth bared at Peter.

"No," Remus said sharply. "A hand, please, Prongs?"

James stumbled out of the booth and grabbed Sirius by his shirt collar. Swaying a bit, he gave Remus a pointed look. "You know I'm too drunk to deck this fool if he gets out of hand, right?"

"I've got more faith in your ability to deck him than your ability to calculate a tip," Remus said dryly. "Out, before more people start staring at us."

Steadying himself, James pulled Sirius in front of him and pushed him toward the exit by his shoulders. "Alright, mate, let's go."

"I can't believe I'm letting you do this to me!"

"Oh, bend over, why don't you. Come on, out, out," James drawled, giving Sirius another push. "To the door, that's the ticket."

I looked at Peter. He was curled up in the booth, still seething, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Come on, Peter," I said, jerking my head towards the exit of the pub. "We're all done here. Let's go home."

Glowering at me, Peter slid out of the booth balanced himself against the corner of the table.

"They're just drunk," I said, a touch impatiently. "Sirius is always an arse when he's drunk. You've seen it, you know."

There was a long pause as I pulled my cloak around my shoulders and gathered up my handbag; then out of the corner of my eye I noticed Peter's face scrunching up. To my shock, he had begun to cry, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth digging painfully into his lower lip. Shaking, he put his hands over his face.

"Peter." I put his hand on his shoulder. He didn't budge. "Hey, don't worry about them."

"They don't get it," Peter said. His voice was high and he was hyperventilating. He wiped his eyes and nose on the cuff of his sleeve, leaving a long trail of teary mucus on his arm. He looked quite deranged. "What was I supposed to _do_, Lily?"

I had no idea what Peter was talking about, but he was beginning to unnerve me. "Don't worry about it," I said again, tugging him toward the door. "Really. It's not worth it."

"They j-just don't understand, any of them," Peter hiccuped, his hands still balled up at his chin. "Why I couldn't be here - there was nothing I could do - "

"Well, why _couldn't _you be here?" I asked. "I know what you told me. Is it true?"

"Yes!" Peter gasped, his eyes bulging. "Yes, every word of it is true! The Dark Lord swept through Wales last Christmas, you heard about that! I had to hide, Lily!"

"You could have hidden with us," I said bluntly. "The Order of the Phoenix would have been able to protect you better than you could have done by yourself. We'd have hidden your parents, too. We have experience doing this sort of thing."

Peter moaned. "You really have no idea how strong he is, Lily…really, the things he's capable of…I saw them when he was taking over Wales…you cannot imagine…"

"No, I probably can't. Let's get out of here."

Still gnawing his lip, Peter merely nodded. I pushed the door open and stepped out into the cold night air. James and Sirius were standing in a storm drain across the street, apparently arguing: Sirius was making indignant gestures and James was slapping his forehead in what looked like frustration, their movements sloppy and exaggerated with the effects of the alcohol. Peter tried go to them, but I held him back, thinking it best for Sirius to sober up before speaking to Peter again. Face contorted, Peter turned away and faced the pub.

A chilly rain began to drizzle the already-wet ground, and I shuddered. James and Sirius were still arguing:

"You really, really didn't need to go there," Sirius slurred, not seeming to notice that he'd hit the lamppost behind him as he gesticulated about. "That was totally unnecessary. Where the bloody fuck do you get off telling me - "

" - Stop, just stop, shut up - "

" - I'd do anything for you, and 'shut up' is all you have to say to that!" Sirius yelled, looking anguished. "What's your fucking problem, mate!"

"Just calm down!" James yelled back. "Please, will you _please _calm down!"

There was a pause; I saw Sirius slump against the streetlamp. James exhaled in what looked like poorly disguised nausea.

Peter mumbled something. I looked over at him. His was facing the brick wall of the pub; his eyes were squeezed shut and he was fumbling sideways, seeming to grope for the alley. "They ought to understand…friends try to understand each other…nothing I could have done - "

I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. "What are you talking about?" I asked harshly. "Open your eyes, Peter, you're being ridiculous - "

"They should understand," Peter said again. Now he opened his eyes and smiled. He giggled. "I couldn't have done any better. I'm not like them. I'm not rich or smart. They should know that."

"Peter - "

He put up his hand. His nails were uncut and his palm was clammy; I recoiled. "Don't tell me what you think I am, Lily," he said, his voice high. "You'll just overestimate me."

"I hadn't planned on that, actually," I said, feeling oddly repulsed. "But I might just tell you to get over yourself."

"Right," Peter said feverishly. "I'm over-confident. I should stop that."

"No, that's - "

Just then the pub door swung open, and Remus strode out, looking angry. He gave Peter and me a curt nod. "How's it going out here?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. Peter gave another high, mirthless laugh and shrank against the wall, trembling. Remus noted this and put his hands in his pockets. "So things are going well, then."

"Yeah. Swimmingly."

Just then I heard Sirius swear. I looked up; James had stumbled part way out of sight and was now bent over the gutter, retching. A woman walking by gave him a look of revulsion and broke into a jog.

"Shit, mate, I'm sorry," Sirius exclaimed again. Now he started laughing. "Fuck, this always happens to you, this must be the fiftieth time, and Remus _always_ calls it - "

Still bent double, James held up his middle finger.

"Remus," Sirius said loudly, looking thoroughly amused, "you called this one, didn't you?"

Remus rolled his eyes in disgust. "Fuck off," he called back. Then he turned to me. "I'll wait with you here until James pulls it together," he said. "Then I'll get these two other idiots home. James should go with you."

I glanced hesitantly at James. He was still coughing into the gutter. My stomach turned.

"Trust me, he'll be fine once he's done," Remus said, not seeming perturbed in the least. "I'm just amazed you didn't run into this earlier. We always had the firewhiskey out Seventh Year at Hogwarts."

"That much I knew."

"Yeah. God what a lot of drama that was." Now he cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled across the street. "Oy, are you fools done yet?"

"Almost," Sirius replied. "We're looking classy!"

James coughed again, looking thoroughly ill. "Do you _ever_ know when to shut the fuck up?"

"That's just part of my charm." Sirius slapped James on the back; James groaned. "You okay, mate?"

"I hate you," James said hoarsely.

"Remember that time we both got smashed, drank about a gallon of water apiece, and then ran outside and puked at the same time?"

"No matter how many times you bring that up, it will never, ever be funny."

"Oy," Remus shouted impatiently. "Let's _go!"_

Looking visibly disgusted, James spat on the ground, wiped his mouth, and walked over to us, Sirius close behind. James was shivering; he was pale and obviously still not feeling well. "Sorry about that," he said flatly. He glanced over at Peter, who was still hunched awkwardly in the shadows. "What's up with you, Peter?"

Peter merely stepped forward, his arms clutched tightly against his chest. He was trembling slightly.

"Well," James said tersely. His lips were pressed into a thin line. "Gang's all here then. Great."

"You go with Lily," Remus said. "Sirius, Peter, both of you come with me. And no bloody puking in my direction."

James blew out a breath and looked at me. I sighed inwardly, took his hand, and Disapparated.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Back in my flat, I took James's cloak and performed a Cleaning Charm on it while he coaxed down a large glass of water. He was still shivering a bit, leaning faintly against my kitchen counter.

"Feeling okay?" I asked, watching him sip hesitantly at the glass.

"Like I'm going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow," he responded. He was staring blankly at the table. "Right on schedule to duel with fucking Alastor Moody."

"Does Pepperup Potion help? I think I might have stuff to make some."

James chuckled. "No, you'd be standing over the cauldron all night."

"I can occupy myself."

Now James smiled in earnest. "What are you going to do, sit up writing for ten hours? Even your attention span isn't that long. Anyway, the potion doesn't really help my hangovers."

I raised an eyebrow. James did the same and looked at me with exaggerated intensity. For several moments we stared at each other.

"What," I said.

"You look like you smell something funny."

"Nope. Just you."

James snorted into his glass. "That's what I meant." Then he looked up at me, his face still pale, his eyes dark and heavy with something I couldn't name. "I'm sorry about tonight."

I shrugged a bit uncomfortably. "Not your fault."

"That whole dinner," he said, "was so bad. I mean, holy fuck, it was bad." He folded an arm across his stomach and massaged his forehead. He breathed deeply. "What the hell went wrong with Peter - and Sirius? And Remus, Jesus Christ. He's so uptight these days, I don't even know how to talk to him. And forget Peter. He's so - I can't even describe it."

I tilted my head. "Nervous?" I offered gently.

"Not even that, worse than that," James replied. His voice was hoarse; he raked his hand through his hair. "I don't know. Maybe he was just drunk tonight. I don't think I've ever seen him that drunk before."

"Alcohol does have a way of making people a little crazy."

"And Sirius," James went on, seeming not to have heard me. He looked pained. "What the hell was that? Below the belt every single time. He never used to get like that with me, even when he was smashed out of his mind." He put down his empty glass and covered his face with his hands for a moment. Then he blew out a breath and smiled at me with a mixture of sadness and bitterness. "And here I am, a whiny drunk in your kitchen you don't think you can get rid of."

"Oh, James," I said softly. I reached out and touched his face; I had never seen him so unhappy before. I took his arm and tugged gently. "Come on. Let's get you showered off and in bed."

"I'm really sorry to put you through this, Lily."

"Put me through what? You haven't done anything."

"I just - I really hoped you wouldn't ever see me vomiting drunk in public. After practically getting into a bar room brawl with my friends, of all people."

"I'm not judging. Peter and Sirius were about to start hitting each other anyway; you were just in the middle. Though your liver might not be feeling so kindly." I led him into the bathroom, switched on the light, and turned on the shower. Hot water began spraying from the nozzle almost immediately; I pulled the curtain and began unbuttoning James's shirt. "I'm going to go and let the owl out for the night. He's probably itching to stretch his wings."

James looked up. "Will you join me afterward?"

I kissed him on the cheek. "Yes. I'll be back in a minute."

Noah the Owl was awake and preening in his cage when I entered my room; he hooted indignantly when I flicked on the lights. "I know, I know, it's supposed to be dark, I get it," I said, unlocking the door to his cage and bringing it over to the window. He gave a startled flutter when I forced the window open. "There. Go out and kill some mice."

Noah stared intently at me for several moments before hopping onto the windowsill; then he spread his wings and glided silently out into the night.

I waited a few seconds for him to be gone, and then made to shut the window. A loose bolt rattled as I brought the frame down, and suddenly I remembered Snape's coins gnawing at me from my desk drawer.

Throat constricting, I snapped off the lights and slammed the door on my way into the hallway. Noisily I strode into the bathroom and stripped off, leaving my clothes in a heap on the floor.

James was standing silently under the shower head when I got in with him, leaning with one arm against the tile wall, hot water streaming down his bare body. His cheeks had flushed from the heat, and he looked so young, so tender in the belly and fists.

"Hi, Lily," he said quietly as I got under the water with him.

"Hi, James."

"I brushed my teeth. Can I hold you?"

I put my arms around him and rested my cheek against his slick chest; he pulled me close. "Always."

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Author's note: **Hello. :) Thanks for reading and reviewing. To the anonymous comments on the last chapter:

_papercranes: _Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I'm in love with James, too - I probably shouldn't be, but oh well. A girl has to have her favorite character, right? ;)

_BBCracker: _Thank you! I liked the last chapter more than some of the others; rereading them now, I'm a little ehhhh about some of them. Oh well. :P And _Girl Interrupted_ pretty much stayed stuck in my brain for days after I finished it. That was some pretty crazy stuff.

_Reader: _You know what's funny? I sparred on a martial arts team all four years in college and am a complete freak about striking and submission fighting. I had to exercise some serious restraint when I was writing the fight scenes because it was just too tempting to pull out a bunch of Jiu-Jitsu moves and be like, BAM, now everyone knows how to put the bad guys in a choke hold. But it was not to be. Alas. :P I'm glad you like the story. Thanks for reviewing!

I hope you've all enjoyed this chapter. I'll try to update…soonish…but my PI more or less owns my life right now, so we'll see. Then again, I randomly wrote 1/4 of this chapter tonight out of a manic need for a study break. I'm not sure how good my writing is when I'm this tired and crazy, but if you guys can read it without being all WTF I SEE A MILLION TYPOS, then I guess I'm sort of in the right ball park.

Much love and many cheers,

Silverspinner


	10. Two Faces

**- Chapter 9: Two Faces - **

Obviously, life on the playground post-Severus Snape became problematic for my eight- and recently-nine-year-old self. Noah was kind about it and kept quiet, though winkingly so - but I wasn't so lucky with the other children. Edwin teased me mercilessly, proclaiming to the entire football crowd - every day, every single time I played - that Severus Snape and I had been seen sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love! Then comes marriage! Then comes Lily with the baby carriage!

"You don't even know where babies come from," I shrieked one damp spring day as Edwin laughingly stole the football from me and began dribbling it down the field. "You still think babies come from the stork! Sodding git!"

"Nope, babies come from your mum's box! And yours too!" he cackled, stumbling over the ball as I lunged at him and shoved as hard as I could, missing him and throwing myself headlong into a pile of half-melted snow. "Lily's going to squeeze little Snape babies out of her box! Hoo-hooo!"

"Edwin - O'Neill!" I yelled, slipping in the mud as I clambered to my feet, "You stop talking about me and Snape like that!"

Still laughing, Edwin ran the ball down to the goal and, with a hoot, kicked it clear over the goalie's head. The other boys on the field sniggered as I wiped my hands on my jeans and stormed off to the swing set.

I hardly noticed the figure on the swing at the far end of the set until it stood up and moved to the swing beside mine. Jolted, I looked up; it was Severus Snape.

"Oh God, it's you," I groaned.

"I'm not going to do anything," he protested.

"You've already caused me enough trouble and you hardly even _talked_ to me."

Snape flinched as if I'd hit him and looked away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

"Well, I know you didn't," I said awkwardly. I found his contrition worryingly disarming. "I mean, just don't - make them think we're going to get married or anything."

The mat of overgrown hair hiding most of Snape's face twitched - maybe he had laughed? "Don't worry," he said, and his voice carried a note of what I would later come to recognize as mirthless irony, "I'm not interested in making your life miserable."

"Thanks." I rose off the swing and turned to leave.

"Hey," he said. I paused. Cheeks reddening, he continued in a rush. "You can at least call me by my first name. You seem nice."

I stared at him, taken aback. "Really?"

Severus nodded vigorously, cheeks redder than ever. From across the field I heard Edwin hoot in our direction again, making obscene gestures and shouting something about how I was going to let Severus see my knockers.

I picked up a dirt clod and flung it in Edwin's general direction. It landed about six feet away from me. "I don't _have _knockers yet, you bloody berk!"

"Ignore him."

Startled, I turned. Severus had been watching me with great intensity, but when I met his gaze, he looked away. "Just ignore him," he said again, this time with less relish. "He's not worth your time."

"Oh, what are you going on about? He's my _friend."_

"Doesn't seem like it. All he ever does is go around having a good _laugh_ at you. And you put up with it! How can you not see that?"

"I just - he's a stupid berk is all," I blushed. I ground my toe into a bit of loose dirt. "We call each other names all the time. It doesn't mean anything."

"But he always does it first. You never start it. He picks on you and you - you just take the bait."

"Why do you care so much?" I demanded. "This isn't any of your business!"

"I - I just think you're too good for him. Besides, you're - " Severus stopped. He looked abashed.

"I'm _what?" _

"You're just not like the rest of them," Severus finished, clutching the chains of his swing painfully in front of him. "But you don't understand that now. You think you're like all these other dunderheads."

He looked so utterly convinced of this - and so shrinkingly pathetic, wobbling like that on the dirty chain-linked swing - that I almost wanted to give him a pat on the shoulder. "What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

"Someday you'll see," he said fervently. "You'd just - you'd just never believe me if I told you now."

I blinked. The chains of his swing were twirling slowly, the toes of his shoes dragging in the grass. "Told me what?" I asked finally.

Digging his foot into the ground, Severus stopped twirling and gave me an expression I could not decipher. Then he looked away. "You have special powers. I can tell."

There was a long pause. Then I laughed, a high, sudden, girlish sound. I wasn't sure if I was amused or plain disgusted. _"That's _what you wanted to tell me?"

Severus stared at me in confusion. "So you know?"

"No wonder people think you're strange."

Now he practically recoiled. "As if I _cared_ what they thought!"

"Nobody said anything about caring," I shrugged. "I don't care what they think either."

Suddenly Severus's expression brightened. "You don't?"

"No way," I lied. "Why should I?"

And that was the first time - one of the very, very rare times - that I heard Severus Snape laugh. It was a quiet sound that shook him by the shoulders and pulled his mouth into the most uncontrolled smile I'd ever seen; and once he'd started laughing, I learned, it was hard for him to stop. I assumed this was because he laughed so rarely that, when he did, those pressurized kernels of joy at the pit of his stomach just came bursting out of him, and that joy was one of the few emotions he'd never had much occasion to practice controlling. And now, with him seeming almost to be having a seizure because of it, I felt as if I'd been granted some strange, rare honor - I had made this sad, spiteful little boy not only smile, but _laugh. _

"What are you laughing at?" I asked after a long pause. I giggled nervously. "You look like you're going mental."

That only set him off again. He clutched the chains of his swing, his slight shoulders trembling, and twirled again - side-to-side, chains creaking. "Sorry," he said at last, with great effort. "I'm sorry. This isn't funny." He took a deep breath. The grin was still plastered across his face, partially hidden by his overgrown black hair. Finally he controlled himself and looked at me seriously. "I was just - glad you didn't care."

A quiet sense of determination settled over me now, and I sat down on the swing beside him. "You need to have more fun in your life, Severus," I said. Then, with a kick and a pump, I launched my swing into the air. "See if you can get higher than me!"

x.x.x.x.x.x

The next morning dawned gray and rainy. I had tucked James into my bed shortly after we'd finished in the shower, and seeing that he was still unsteady on his feet and somewhat nauseated, I had placed a bucket beside the bed and stayed up, typewriter before me, to keep an eye on him. To my relief, he fell asleep and stayed asleep from thereon out, so after writing for two hours I got into bed beside him and allowed myself to fall into a dreamless sleep.

When he woke up, however, he was in a foul mood.

"Why are the curtains open?" he groaned, shoving his head under his pillow. He pulled at the covers, yanking them off me. "And why the bloody fuck is it so bright in here?"

"It's seven in the morning, James, why did you think?" I shivered, yanking the covers back. "And quit hogging the blankets, it's freezing in here!"

"I'm not hogging the blankets." He peered over the edge of the bed. "Wait, what's the typewriter doing there? Were you up late?"

"Not really. I just stayed up a few hours to keep an eye on you. I did some writing while I was at it."

James sighed. "I was fine. You should have gone to sleep."

"You were kind of pale."

"I'm always pale. This is your bed, anyway; why did you leave me alone in it? It's like you thought I was just going to keep you up all night."

"Oh come on. You've had worse."

James snorted. He massaged his temples. "True. I don't have dicks drawn all over my face. At least, I don't think so." He raked a hand through his hair and squinted at me; then he slid back under the covers and rested his face in my lap. "What did you end up writing?"

"Possibly an obituary," I lied.

"Whose?"

"Orion Silverman."

"Oh yeah. I knew that guy. Sort of."

I paused. "He's dead, James."

James was silent for a moment. Then he groaned. "Fuck. Okay. That's my hangover, starting right now."

"You should get some more sleep," I said, rubbing gently at his scalp. "Take it easy and I'll get you some water."

"Can you stop doing that? It's making my head hurt."

I took my hands out of his hair. Blowing out a breath, James sat up, looking paler than he had a moment earlier. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Orion is actually Aidan Silverman's older brother."

"Aidan…wait, who?"

"New Chaser on the Quidditch team last year. Fourth year now. Orion introduced the kid to me at King's Cross beginning of our, uh. Our seventh year. When I captained."

Tentatively I reached out and touched James's shoulder. He was tense and breathing sharply through his nose. "I liked Aidan. Got to know him a bit. Kid had spunk," he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "I'll be right back." He dashed into the bathroom. There was a long pause, followed by the sound of the toilet flushing, and then the faucet; then spitting, and a toothbrush being crushed against the inside of a cheek. Then silence.

A few minutes later James shuffled back into the bedroom, raking a hand through his hair so that it stood up. His lips were pale; he collapsed onto the bed beside me. "I swear to God I have food poisoning."

"Not just sick from the alcohol?"

"I don't know. Probably. Fuck it. Anyway, I'm going to Headquarters before I start crying."

Gently, I pushed him back down and pulled the covers around him. His face was contorted.

"You don't have to be there until half-past eight," I said, stroking his cheek. "Try to relax, okay? Sleep another half hour. I'll make you some tea and we can try to head off this hangover before you have go to and duel with Moody. I'll join you after you have an hour or so to practice."

James rolled over and buried his face in my pillow.

"You alright?" I said softly.

"I'm fine."

I bent down and kissed the back of his neck. "I'll go get that tea started," I whispered. "Take it easy."

When James didn't answer, I knew I had judged him correctly - he wanted to be alone. I took my cue and quietly left the room. Knowing he'd be out in ten or fifteen minutes, I busied myself with filling the teakettle and - for the first time in a while - making breakfast: Two eggs, one for James and one for me.

x.x.x.x.x.x

James looked like an unmade bed that morning, shirt untucked, jeans wrinkled, hair standing up in four different directions, eyes bloodshot and sporting the darkest circles I'd seen on him in years. He forced down his egg and toast at my coaxing, drank about a liter of tea, and spent the rest of the morning either peeing or, much to my puzzlement, attempting to read _The Daily Prophet_ as though it would convince him he didn't have a raging headache. Sensing that he didn't want to talk, I occupied myself with puttering about the kitchen while he sat with his forehead in his palm, staring unseeingly at the paper.

"You should probably interview Aidan," he said at last. His voice was hoarse. "He's still at Hogwarts. You'd have to go there to see him. So you could speak to Dumbledore while you were there."

I looked up from the stain I was scrubbing off the counter. "My first thought was to interview his parents."

"No. I mean - whatever. You could." He glanced wearily at the clock and stood up. "I'd better go."

"James," I sighed. I went to him and gently straightened his collar. "You knew Aidan that well?"

James gave me a strange look. "You're acting like I was having a love affair with him."

"You're just obviously upset. It's setting off my woman's intuition."

"I'm hung over. And of course I'm upset. I care about the Quidditch team."

"I know." And then, before I realized what I was saying: "Don't be next, please."

"Oh, Lily." He kissed me and pulled me close so I couldn't see his face. "Don't look at me like that."

"Like how?"

"Like you do," James replied softly. He kissed me again, still not meeting my gaze. "I'll see you at Headquarters in a couple of hours. And I'll make sure to kill Moody if he throws you up against the wall this time."

And then he was out the door, it seemed, as suddenly as he had ever come in, taking the warmth of my flat out into the rain with him and leaving me with nothing but the muffled _click _of the lock.

_Oh, how poignantly you ache, _sneered a voice in my head. _Go and write another obituary. Go and write another eulogy. Go sell it and collect your goddamn fucking paycheck. _

Suddenly I was reeling from rage and disgust, knees weak, fingers and toes electrified - and with a yell I slammed my fist into the door. Crushing, white-hot pain shot up my arm and through my shoulder, and I stumbled back, skidding on the tile floor. I wondered briefly if I'd fall and fracture my skull because the soles of my overly-soft, overly-worn housewife's slippers weren't suited anymore even to domestic life. My fist was pulsating. A tiny rivulet of blood had found its way out from under the skin.

Focused by the pain, I walked back into my bedroom and yanked open the bottom drawer of my desk. Snape's coins clinked and rattled as I plucked them out, one - gold; two - silver; three - bronze, and then went silent as I clenched my bleeding fist around them. I tore off my pajamas with my free hand and threw on jeans, boots, and a tank-top. I snatched my wand and cloak and - just before Disapparating - turned the silver coin over five times.

x.x.x.x.x.x

_They are on to you. Expect a trap. _

The words seared white before the coin vaporized in my palm, burning as it left me nearly blinded with vertigo. I had almost Apparated into a solid wall. Stumbling, I clutched the windowsill of the small alcove we used as an alternate entrance point to Headquarters and held it until the room stopped spinning.

_They're on to me, _I thought. _About what? And why the hell would Snape of all people be telling me something like that, if it weren't a joke or part of the trap itself?_

A ruse? There was no way. Severus Snape did not pull pranks. If he wanted to hurt me, he would do it more earnestly. Therefore he was either trying to lure me into some Death Eater trap. _- Or - he's not actually a Death Eater, and I've been basically hallucinating for the past couple of years? _

It was obvious that he knew I was writing obituaries based on interviews with the bereaved - if for no other reason than nothing else I'd done in the recent past had drawn any kind of notice whatsoever. - Or so I hoped. I wracked my memory. What _had _I been doing in the recent past?

- Sitting in the train station in a multiplicity of disguises. Bitching about the meaninglessness of my life in poetical form. Shuffling envelopes in the mail room. Staying up all night with a mechanical typewriter.

Someone had probably bugged the home of one of the people I had interviewed, I realized with horror; after all, it would have been too easy not to. How many unregistered Animagi were hiding amongst the Death Eaters? How many innocuous pieces of furniture, paintings, mirrors, or lace doilies had been turned into spying devices and hidden within plain sight? How could I have been stupid enough not to realize that if the Death Eaters could find one member of the family, then surely they could find the others?

_Who is Cygna Mallard? _My hands were shaking. _Who on the inside is an informer? _

Breathing erratically, I made my way into the breakfast room, head high and shoulders back to hide my fear.

"All right, Lily?"

I almost fell over. I had nearly walked into Alice Pearce. She was standing in the entrance to the breakfast room with a cup of tea in her hand. A whiff of steam told me it was Earl Grey. My nerves tingled.

"How's it going, Alice," I said, as evenly as I could.

"Fine. No Dementors this morning. What's got you? You have a mad look in your eye."

"I'm that obvious, am I?"

Alice raised an eyebrow, and then took a very measured sip of tea. "You got your first period a week after I first got mine."

My shoulders loosened, but my stomach didn't. It took a moment for me to realize what she meant. "If you were an informer, hearing you say that would only worry me more."

She continued to look at me measuredly. "But at least it tells you I'm me and not an impostor."

I shuddered.

"Lily, what's wrong?" Alice asked in a low voice. "Why are you paranoid? What happened?"

I glanced around the room to make sure no one was listening. Then I dropped my voice to a whisper. "Snape gave me a coin with a message on it. I - need your opinion."

Alice's eyes hardened. "What did it say?"

"_'They are on to you. Expect a trap.' _- Is he fucking with my head? Because I can't bloody tell."

"When did he give it to you?"

"I sold him a cup of espresso while I was on shift with the recruits. He paid and shoved the thing at me. Then he got in my face and told me to trust him."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Don't trust him. Prepare for the worst and then make him _believe_ you trust him. Then he'll screw up and you'll find out what he's really up to."

Her words felt like a knife being twisted in the small of my back. "So you think he's trying to hurt me?"

"No. He wants to fuck you and take you back before you marry James. Which is fine because he'll fail. What's dangerous is the fact that he's in the Dark Lord's circle. I've been keeping tabs on him. He has the Dark Mark."

I recoiled as if I'd been struck.

"Oh, come on," Alice said disgustedly. "Don't give me that. You knew."

"No," I shot back. "I suspected. I didn't _know. _I never bothered to confirm. I haven't spoken to him in over a year."

"You still care about him and that's going to be your biggest problem. I'll tell you that straight off. He _is _fucking with your head, Lily. I don't think you'd have the heart to kill him if you had to."

"Who said anything about me killing anyone? You're the one whose job that is!"

Now Alice was the one to recoil. "That's not the point."

"Whatever," I said harshly. "So you think Snape is going to give me trouble. Okay. Help your friend. What do you think he's going to do?"

Alice set her jaw for a moment, her lips pressed tightly together. Then she drew a breath and took an even sip of tea. "He hasn't established his loyalty yet. Voldemort doesn't take him seriously. So if he's serious about being a Death Eater, he'll do anything to get in Voldemort's good books. But don't ask me what he's plotting. I don't know."

"What, no suspicions?" I asked, a touch snidely.

"Listen, if you're still hung up on Snape, I suggest you work it out, but don't drop it all on my head," Alice said, the color rising in her cheeks again. "Like I said, I don't know what he's planning. Just use your head. He's a Death Eater. He still has a boner for you. He also has some serious Mummy and Daddy issues. Don't touch him with a ten-foot pole. That's all I can tell you."

That stung. I looked away. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." She leaned wearily against the wall. "What brought this on, anyway?"

"I - " I paused. "I don't know. He just gave me the coins. I guess I assumed it was related to what I've been, you know, doing."

Alice's brow furrowed. "Why, whose obituary are you writing now? How could Snape possibly know, and why would he care?"

I looked down and shuffled my feet a bit. "The Muggle brother of a fourteen-year-old kid who plays on the Gryffindor Quidditch team," I said in a low voice, glancing around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "I think - "

"What's the name of the person who died?"

"Orion Silverman."

Alice's body went rigid. "Ah. Yes. Frank was on that case a couple of days ago. The Death Eaters have been killing Muggles who get friendly with Wizarding types. Silverman was just one of a load of them. I want to say you should stick to interviewing his brother, because the Death Eaters are still after his parents. You don't want to get in the middle of that. At least his brother is protected at Hogwarts."

"Which Death Eaters are after the parents?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

Alice licked her lips. "Dolohov. And one we haven't identified yet. We think they just like torturing Orion's parents. They haven't really made a move to kill them, at least not that we saw when we got to the murder scene. We have the parents under a load of protective spells right now anyway."

"But they still killed Orion."

"Frank says it was an accident, sort of," Alice said, her mouth curling into a mirthless sneer. "Apparently the Killing Curse was directed him, not at Orion. Orion just happened to jump in the way at the wrong time. The story goes that he was running after Dolohov with a chair, trying to hit him. Dolohov and Frank were dueling. Orion got underfoot."

I blew out a breath.

"I hate it when people do stupid things like that and die," Alice said flatly.

A strange twisting sensation was forming in my throat. "Do they do it often?"

"All the bloody time. I can't stand it."

"If you're getting down on heroism, you're one to talk, honestly."

"I'm comfortable with my hypocrisy. And Lily," she added, giving me deathly serious look, "don't go looking for Orion's parents. Do not be that stupid person. Don't be like me."

x.x.x.x.x.x

The first thing I felt upon pushing open the door to Moody's dueling lesson was a blast of warm, sweaty air. The second thing was the doorknob being abruptly pulled from my hand. It was Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"Welcome, Lily," he said, gesturing for me to enter the room. Hesitantly I stepped inside.

_"Incarcerous!" _someone shrieked; I nearly jumped. Glancing around wildly for the source, I was greeted by a scene I had not been prepared for: There were at least a dozen people darting about the room, all of them stripped down to t-shirts, shorts, and socks, ducking and weaving about each other as spells flew in every direction, thudding with finality into the enchanted floor. Huge mirrors levitated along the lengths of all four walls, reflecting a dizzying infinity of explosions and whirling bodies. I gawped.

"We're practicing," Kingsley stated with a note of amusement in his voice. "I'll take a wild guess. You've never done anything like this before."

I opened my mouth to respond, but the words never left my throat. At the far end of the room, dueling fiercely with a shirtless Sirius Black, was James - also quite brazenly shirtless. Sirius was a fluid blur, his movements oblique and dangerous, his mouth twisted with something that looked like laughter - but James seemed completely unruffled, striking with his wand hand squarely in front of him, purposeful, effortless, arrogant. His every step and dodge was perfectly timed. Quite contrary to the way he had looked this morning, he seemed to be in his element.

"Yeah, Sirius is flashy," Kingsley said, snapping me out of my trance. "The only reason he can pull that off is because he's so bloody athletic. I keep telling him to quit with all the stupid spinning and jumping."

"I wasn't looking at him," I murmured.

"Oh, right. Of course not." Kingsley smirked and leaned casually against the wall. "Does that look like the James you know?"

"Not really - " But then I stopped, as James had just sucker-punched Sirius with a hex I hadn't seen him use since our Fifth Year; and the spell would have landed, too, if Sirius had not somersaulted out of the way and sent a fountain of blue sparks flying in James's direction. Bouncing back onto his feet, Sirius said something and James burst out laughing.

"Actually, yeah," I amended, watching as he and Sirius slapped hands before raising their wands again. "That's him."

Kingsley made a noncommittal noise. "James fights like an arsehole, a little." He rubbed his chin. "But anyway, let's get you started. You're going to want to take your shoes off."

My stomach twisted a little, and I did as I was told; I gripped my triceps and felt diminished and out of place. James and Sirius were beautiful, and I was torn between wanting to fuck them both and loathing myself for so being so totally clumsy and weak by comparison. There were so many beautiful boys here, all with their shirts clinging to their broad shoulders and muscled chests, bare ankles and sinewy calves moving with crude masculine grace. I was one of the few women in the room - and, looking at myself in the endless tunnels of mirrors, I saw that I was the only one who had not dressed for the occasion.

_A lace bra, _I thought hopelessly. _I could have worn a sports bra. But today, of all days, I had to pick the lace one. _The seams and color were faintly visible beneath the thin fabric of my top, which was peeking through the opening of my cloak. I felt like an overdressed stripper.

"If you're squeamish about getting sweaty, you're in the wrong place," Kingsley said. He was giving me a funny look.

"Oh no," I replied dryly. I yanked off my cloak, wadded it up, and tossed it onto a floating shelf next to my boots. One of the young men in the room turned and stared at me for a moment; I drew my wand. "Not at all."

"Good. Come with me."

"So how long have you guys been doing this?" I asked as Kingsley led me toward the small cluster of female duelers in the corner. "Because if you've been training people like this all along without letting any of those young kids on sentry duty hear about it, you're tyrants."

"We've been doing this for a week," Kingsley replied coolly. "The Death Eaters are getting stronger and we're stretched too thin. Everyone who can fight is going to fight now."

"So you're basically conceding that having recent Hogwarts graduates police the train station and Gringotts vaults was useless, but we could afford that waste until now."

Kingsley didn't seem perturbed by that. "I wouldn't call it a waste." Then he raised his voice. "Marlene McKinnon! I've got a new partner for you."

A pink-cheeked, shorts-clad Marlene lowered her wand and looked up curiously; with a little shock down my spine I realized she was wearing the same Chudley Cannons t-shirt she had often slept in when we shared a dormitory at Hogwarts. Her chestnut hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that bobbed each time she turned her head. She had been dueling with a young blonde witch I vaguely remembered as a Hufflepuff who had graduated one year behind us. "What's up, Kingsley?"

"You know Lily, right?" Kingsley asked, lightly pushing me forward. "I want you to practice with her for a bit."

_"Lily?" _Marlene squealed, jumping forward and throwing her arms around my neck. "Bloody hell, where have you been? I haven't seen you in ages!"

"I've been around," I said faintly. Strands of Marlene's ponytail were stuck to my mouth.

She stepped back and gave me a look of wonderment. "Blimey. You're not ready for this, are you?"

Kingsley cleared his throat. "Focus on the step work, Marlene; I'm going to have her go with one of the boys later. If you have questions, come and find me." Then he gestured toward the young blonde witch. "Come with me, I'll get you paired up with another group of girls." As they turned, I heard him add, "You've improved a lot over the past few days. I don't know why more girls don't show up to these things."

"So what's been happening, Lily?" Marlene asked. She looked mystified by my very presence. "I sent you a couple of owls, but you never replied."

"Wait, really?" I was completely taken aback. Marlene and I had been friends at Hogwarts, but I'd always been much closer to Alice. "I had no idea! I must not have gotten them; I'd have answered them!"

"That's bloody weird," Marlene said. She raised her wand and took up a dueling stance. "But I guess we should catch up later. Practice ends in less than two hours."

Hesitantly I mimicked Marlene's stance and raised my wand. "Okay then. What do we do?"

x.x.x.x.x.x

We spent the next hour together, with Marlene patiently instructing me on how to measure my distance and "feel out" my opponent. "It's not a matter of consciously knowing every spell you're going to cast," she explained. "It's about reflexes, or at least that's what Kingsley told me. You think of your wand as an extension of your brain. You're supposed to be able to just imagine what you want to do to your opponent without analyzing it too much."

"How do you remember all those bloody spells?" I asked, my mouth dry. I was bouncing lightly, as Marlene had told me to do, so that I could "more easily jump out of the way" if a curse I couldn't block came flying at me. "Is that supposed to be reflex too?"

"Well, yeah. Don't worry though, it's hard. Everyone has trouble with it at first. I still do." Then she hit me with a Stunning Charm.

My biggest problem, I soon realized, was not that I didn't know which spells to cast - it was that I could never seem to cast them quickly enough. Dueling with Marlene in that loud, chaotic, sweaty-smelling room, and bumping constantly into the other duelers - I could not seem to calm down long enough to cast any spells at all.

"You're doing fine, Lily," Marlene said kindly, which only embarrassed me more. "Everyone sucks at first. We're all here to get better."

That was when Remus Lupin jogged over to us and tapped me on the shoulder. "Ready to go, Lily?"

I gave Marlene a despairing look. "You're fine," she nodded. "Just forget where you are."

I took a deep breath and nodded to Remus. He gave me a light pat on the back and led me to an open spot near the door.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll be gentle."

My eyes snapped up to his face. He wore an expression of patience, with his light brown hair falling easily about his temples; his eyes were calm and unreadable. Suddenly my fingertips tingled. "You're about to treat me like a baby, aren't you? You expect me to be afraid of you."

Surprise flickered across Remus's face for a split second, but then he straightened up a bit, rolling his shoulders back with an air of cockiness. "You should be," he said, very seriously. "I'm the big bad wolf."

Suddenly the room seemed to have gone quiet. I set my jaw. "Well, let's get on with it, then."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Dueling with Remus was quite different from dueling with Marlene. It was obvious that he sensed my nervousness, but unlike Marlene, he completely ignored it. He simply cast spells and gave me a moment to respond to them before casting another. He evaded my counterattacks with apparent ease but occasionally let me land one of my own.

"That was good," he nodded after I had hit him with a Stunning Spell, the enchanted floor glowing slightly where he had fallen. He stood and brushed himself off. "Now, why do you think that worked?"

_Because you gave it to me? _I thought dryly. "I guess because I Stunned you while you were still recovering from the last spell you threw at me?"

"Exactly. I'd just finished a hex, which you ducked. I didn't anticipate you ducking it. You saw that and Stunned me before I could reset. That's the kind of timing you want."

I looked down at my feet. "Okay. Thanks."

"Sure. Let's go again."

We practiced for a good half an hour, and toward the end Remus began striking more forcefully, knocking me to the floor a couple of times. "Sorry about that," he said, holding out his hand after hitting me particularly hard. "Take it as a compliment."

Angry, I cut him with a Slashing Curse from where I lay, tearing his shirt open as he leapt out of the way; with a yell I scrambled to my feet and whipped my wand across his face, sending up a rope of flames - but Remus countered once again, and the flames fell and splashed harmlessly onto the floor, soaking my feet with cool, clear water.

That was the moment the door banged open. The lights flickered and the room fell quiet; all of the duelers had paused and were looking up with curiosity. Alastor Moody was standing in the doorway.

"What, you're all acting like you've never seen me before," he barked. "Get back to work, and switch partners for Merlin's sake!"

There was a short silence, but then the noise began to pick up again. Remus wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead. "You'll be good at this with more practice," he said, giving my shoulder a light squeeze. "You're kind of jumpy, though. Try to relax more."

My hands were shaking. "And how am I supposed to relax when people are attacking me?"

"Just be loose. Stop thinking so hard." He took up his dueling stance again. "Shall we?"

Swallowing hard, I raised my wand, keeping my eyes trained on Remus.

"Lupin," came a rough voice. Moody was limping towards us, followed closely by a flushed and sweaty James. "I want a word with the lovely lady, if you please."

Remus raised an eyebrow. He stuck his wand back in his pocket. "Well, Lily," he said. "I guess that means I'm going to scram."

"Thanks for your help."

Remus merely saluted as he turned and strode away, yanking his torn shirt over his head as he went.

"All right, Evans," Moody said, taking Remus's spot before me. James was standing impassively beside him, his t-shirt thrown over his shoulder. He was still clutching his wand in one hand. "Potter wanted you to hear what I had to tell him, so here I am. And you can put your wand down," he added, glancing down at my trembling hand.

Slowly, I did as I was told.

"I'm sending Potter on his first mission with some of the senior Aurors," Moody said after a moment, giving James a pointed nod. "He's ready."

"And it takes you a year or more to train new Aurors," I replied. My voice came out higher than I'd expected. "Nice. I think I really see where you're coming from, _sir."_

"This is part of the training."

_What?_ I looked disbelievingly from Moody to James, who now had the expression of a deer in the headlights. "Really, James?"

"Wait, hold up," James spluttered. "Since when am I an Auror? You said I was going for the field experience, and then I'd get to go independent!"

"Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist, it's all the same except for the paperwork."

"What the bloody fuck are you even talking about?" I demanded.

Moody sighed and gestured for James and myself to come closer. When we were all huddled within arm's reach of one another, Moody said, "Potter's joining our group of unregistered fighters. The Ministry of Magic has no control over them and doesn't know who they are. They're our guerilla branch. Freedom fighters."

"Freedom fighters," I repeated incredulously. "You had him mopping up dead people in Gringotts and now, a month later, he's an unregistered Auror."

"Well, the kid's got talent! What do you want, Evans?"

"Stop," James cut in, taking my hand. Moody huffed. "You said you wanted to talk to Lily too."

Moody's magical eye flicked down to my wand hand. "I was just going to tell you not to try to follow Potter into the field. We've got a lot of work to do, Evans."

My cheeks grew hot; without realizing it I began to bare my teeth, fist tightening about my wand. James ran his fingers gently down my back. "Shh, Lily, it's okay," he murmured. I ignored him, sneering at Moody. "What, to prove to me how weak I am?"

He gave a crude laugh. "That would be the easy part, kid. No, actually what I meant is that we have different plans for you. Your place is more in the home, so to speak."

"Yeah. Pregnant, barefoot, and chained to the stove, right?"

Now Moody's face broke into a toothy smile. "No. I want you to be a spy."

Dead silence. James choked.

"Though if you were pregnant, it would be a good cover," Moody added as an afterthought.

James's jaw dropped. "Did you _really_ just say that?"

But Moody was unperturbed. He plowed on: "You've been writing all those cute little obituaries, Evans. Obviously that puts you in an interesting position. You get to interview all these bereaved people. Now, we are constantly trying to figure out which Death Eaters killed whom, but we don't have a whole hell of a lot of resources or time. We peg about sixty-five percent of them and then we bottom out. The Death Eaters know who a lot of our detectives are and we need some new ones to fill out the ranks."

James and I both stared at him.

"Y'see," Moody went on, his magical eye roving from my head to my toes, "you're a pretty, innocent-looking young witch. You don't look like you could hurt a fly. And you're always so earnest. No one would ever suspect you. That's why I want you to keep interviewing all those upset people. You could recover so much information about the killings that the Ministry isn't nimble enough to get without causing a stir. You could get away with anything."

"How does that make me a spy?" I said faintly.

Moody smiled. He sniffed; then his eye rolled toward the door, fixating on it. "If you can't figure that one out, you don't deserve the job. Now, if you'll excuse me - " He whipped his cloak around and made for the door. "I'll have you killing flies in no time, Evans." Then, with one foot already in the hallway, he cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, "ALL RIGHT! EVERYONE WRAP IT UP!"

And with that he was gone.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"A spy. He wants me to be a fucking spy." I raked my hands through my soaked hair, pulling it. I couldn't stop pacing; the sidewalk was gritty and sloshing with dirty water, as a hissing rain had begun falling the moment James and I had stepped outside. I ground my foot against the base of the streetlamp James was leaning against. "Whose idea was that? His? Is he off his bloody rocker?"

"I don't know. I thought it was his until I realized how weird that would be."

"I just - bloody hell, bloody buggering fuck!" I wrung my hands. "A spy. I am not ready for this. I can't even duel!"

"Hey, hey, let's not get all bent out of shape here," James said, grabbing my elbow. "You're fine. I saw you with Remus. You were fine."

"No I wasn't! He could have killed me, and he wasn't even trying!"

"It was your first day," James said, running his palms soothingly up and down my arms. "Everyone sucks on their first day. You were better than almost every other beginner I've seen."

"Not you," I replied in a strangled voice. "Not anyone else who's going to have to fight - "

"Shh, shh, Lily." James reached up and pushed my sodden hair out of my eyes. "Calm down. We've been dueling longer than you have. Moody's been riding us about it for weeks already."

I couldn't meet his eyes; I stared past him, unseeing, at the street before us that ran off into an indefinite and depthless gray. "And you're going off on a mission soon." I pushed my fingers against my brow for a moment. James responded by pulling me into his arms. "I think my head is going to explode."

"We're going to be a pretty serious power couple, aren't we?" he murmured.

I drew back and looked up at him. An odd little smile was playing on his lips.

"What…you don't think - "

"Moody really pisses me off most days," James said, trailing a finger over my collarbone and hooking it into the neck of my top, right above the valley between my breasts. He rested his forehead against mine and dropped his voice to a whisper. "But the thought of you as a spy is really hot."

"James…"

"We are probably going to die young," he said softly. "So can we not think about that all the time?"

"James," I breathed again.

"I want to fuck you so badly."

My breath hitched in my throat. "Wait." I stepped back and dug in my pockets. Then, having found what I was looking for, I opened my fist.

"Either face says you're on top," James said. His eyes were dark with lust.

I didn't reply. I threw Snape's bronze and gold coins high into the air and watched them fall. With two sharp little _pings _they landed before me; chest tight, I raised my foot and ground them roughly into the pavement. Then, with sudden violence, I kicked the coins down the storm gutter.

James held out his hand. "Let's get out of here."

"Yeah." My throat constricted. "I'm done."

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Author's note: **Hey all. Sorry about the extreme lateness of this chapter. Sometimes I'm in the lab until sunrise. Which I hate doing because it turns me into a headache-y, fake-drunk insomniac who loses the ability to drive without clipping dumpsters and curbs, but which I do anyway because I have poorly disguised ambitions of publishing a paper with my name on it.

Anyway, enough of that. Thanks for reading! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. To the anonymous reviewers I can't reply to via PM:

_Cathy: _I'm pleasantly surprised by your comments about Sirius! I actually have the worst time ever writing him. He's tough! :P Also, UNF? *Scratches head* Does that mean what Urban Dictionary says it means? Because if so, James's poor mother would be scandalized. …Or maybe I'm just seriously old and have no idea what all these new-fangled words mean. Bah humbug.

_purplecrayons: _Thanks! The writing style is something I've been working on for years, so I'm glad you like it. :)

Also thanks to _ddgds _and _gf _for reviewing.

Cheers,

- Silverspinner

P.S. I have a blog! The link is in my profile. Stop by if you like. :)


	11. Armaments

**Quick warning: **There's some moderately graphic sex in the first scene of this chapter. It's skip-able if you're not into that sort of thing. Otherwise, yay Lily/James fluff! Enjoy. :)

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

**- Chapter 10: Armaments -**

"You're really beautiful, Lily."

I let my eyes flutter open. James was tracing his finger lazily over the naked curve of my hip, his head propped up on his elbow.

"Am I?"

"Yeah." He trailed his finger up to my lip, where he let it rest. I bit down gently.

We were sprawled atop tousled bed covers in a beam of warm afternoon light, flushed and sweaty. The air was moist with the freshness of recently fallen rain and the musky odor of sex. Shadows moved slowly behind the half-open curtains as a cool breeze blew the last of the storm clouds across the sun, tickling my skin.

"I remember when you first bit me." James's hazel eyes were dark, sleepy. "That was when I knew I wanted you. Really wanted you, I mean."

"I bit you? I don't even remember that."

"Seventh Year. We were out breaking a bunch of rules or something. It was the first time I ever pushed you against a windowsill. You bit my tongue."

"Mmm," I murmured as his hand wandered lower. "I remember that now."

"Yeah. First time I saw you come, too." He kissed me deeply, dipping a finger between my legs. He dropped his voice to a husky whisper. "Let's see if we can make that happen again."

"Again," I repeated, dazed. "You're on a roll."

"It's just my favorite way to see you."

My breath caught between a laugh and a moan as he inserted another finger. "James."

"Come for me, Lily." His breath was warm against my cheek; and when I turned to look at him, his eyes were so full of longing and intensity that I pulled away.

"I have a better idea," I said, clearer in the head now; I sat up. My cheeks grew warm at the thought of what I was going to do and I bit my lip. I hadn't been forward enough to suggest such a thing since the summer after graduation. "That mirror, James."

He glanced over at the mirror mounted on the wall opposite the bed, and a smile of comprehension tugged the corner of his mouth. In one swift, fluid movement he got behind me and sat back on his knees, gripping my hips. Placing my palm against his thigh, I steadied myself; so did my reflection. I heard James exhale.

"Look at that. Bloody perfect."

Through half-closed eyes I watched myself sink down onto him. _What does he imagine when he thinks of me? _I felt his lips on my shoulder, and then the back of my neck; in the mirror I saw his hands move up my stomach to cup my breasts. His face and shoulders were visible behind mine, and he was all focus and desire, hardness and angles standing out against the softness of my hips, my breasts, the dark red silhouette of hair falling over my face. I had never seen him look so utterly taken.

"Lily," James breathed. He began to thrust slowly and I gasped at the feel of him. Warm, like hard velvet.

_Confidence, _I thought breathlessly. I arched into him, aching for the fullness of his touch. _Confidence._

x.x.x.x.x.x

Later, when the sun began to slide low on the horizon, James and I rose from the bed, showered off, and set about cooking and doing laundry. We threw open the windows and conjured a laundry rack in James's living room, along the wall on which his broomstick was proudly mounted, and set a pot of fresh soup to boil on the stove. It was in this gentle quiet that the thought occurred to me - if I was a spy, then I had no idea which information I was already supposed to know.

I expressed this to James as we stood in the living room folding laundry.

"I wouldn't worry about it," he shrugged. He flicked his wand, and the shirt he was folding crumpled into a shapeless pile. "Bollocks, I can never get this part right."

"Here." I re-folded the shirt with a little wave of my wand.

James gave me a look of wonderment. "How are you so good at that?"

"Gifts of womanhood," I said dismissively. "Seriously, James, how am I supposed to be a spy if I don't know what we already know?"

"Moody or someone would have to tell you. Like I said, don't worry about it. Nobody's going to leave you in the dark."

I wrinkled my nose. "They've done a pretty good job so far. 'Hey, Evans, now that you're completely ready for it, why don't you go and do some sneaking?'"

"Well, you've hardly got your first assignment yet, have you? Relax."

"Funny, you sound like you're telling me I should just wait for Daddy Moody's blessing."

James smirked. "Funny, now you sound like _me_. Twenty points from Gryffindor, Head Girl."

"Now I'm _really _cowed by your authority. Would you like to punish me?"

"Maybe." His eyes glinted. "Actually, I think I know a way to break into some of the more confidential Order records. I'll help you."

"Wait - " I stopped. I tilted my head. "Really? Because that sounds like a terrible idea."

James grinned. "Only if you can't carry it off."

"No, I'm serious. I could - " I paused a moment, then lowered my voice. "If the Death Eaters catch me, they could force information out of me. I can't just go and - and raid everything we have, some of it could be really top-secret - "

"D'you think everything's all in one place? Come on, Lily, we're smarter than that. There are at least three separate record rooms, I know where they are. And I already know which ones have which information."

I stared at him. "Rubbish. There is no way you know that."

Now James's grin became downright devilish. "Oh, but I do. I had a theory recently and slipped our friend Caradoc Dearborn a little something to loosen him up. He steered me right."

"You _what?"_

"Nothing I haven't done before," James added, looking at me a bit guiltily. "I just took him out for a sandwich and a whiskey. All I did was give him a mint."

I didn't know what to make of him. "A mint. You gave him a mint spiked with truth serum?"

"Not truth serum," James said quickly. Then, raking a hand through his hair, he added: "I usually don't have to be that heavy-handed."

"Oh, shove it, you cocky git," I exclaimed, swatting him upside the head with an unfolded shirt; James ducked out of the way, laughing.

"Aren't you in the _least _bit curious what I found out?"

With a slightly violent jerk of my wand, I folded the last of the laundry and walked into the kitchen. The thought of James underhandedly drugging Dearborn had sent an unpleasant tremor down my spine, but what was more unnerving was the nagging thought that I might have done it myself.

Bemused, James watched me go. With measured, jittery movements I went to the stove and lifted the lid of the pot.

Like a friendly balm, the aroma of tomatoes and basil wafted up to greet me. I stood for a moment and breathed the richness of it as I stirred the bubbling mixture, imagining that this was a cauldron whose contents I had full mastery over, and gradually my nerves eased. When my hands stopped shaking, I turned to James. He was still in the living room, leaning casually against the wall, watching me with one thumb hooked into his belt loop.

I jerked my head towards the stove, beckoning him. "Come over here and help me chop some parsley, will you?"

He obeyed, his eyes still trained on me. With apparent deliberation he wrapped his arms tightly around my waist, pulling me flush against him, my back against his front. He kissed my earlobe, nipping gently, and - _Oh _- snaked one strong hand under my shorts, teasing. My knees trembled.

"Lily," he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. I shivered and leaned my head back.

"Yes, James?"

"You know I'm a crazy, reckless, arrogant toe rag, right?"

"I know all these things about you, love."

"Then you know you can really only listen to me at your own risk."

"Because obviously," I said, reaching up to trace my finger over his jaw, "you can't help yourself."

"Yes. And it occurs to me that you probably shouldn't do every insane thing I do." He moved his hands back up to my hips and rested them chastely there. Ponderously, almost absently, he kissed my temple. "That being said, I still don't think you need to worry about getting enough information to do your job. But if I were you, I'd want to know how to get at the records anyway, in case - " he hesitated, seeming to struggle with the words - "In case you ever have to get at them yourself."

A dark thought occurred to me. "James, what are you going to do if you meet a Legilimens?"

There was a pregnant pause. "I don't know," he confessed.

I bit my lip. I knew James had no training whatsoever in Occlumency; neither did I. Whatever illicit information he was carrying around in his brain was naked for the taking. A moderately skilled Legilimens, or a few drops of Veritaserum forced down his throat, would be able to extract it with ease.

The silence in the kitchen began to weigh on me like lead as the gravity of the situation made itself felt. I exhaled slowly. "Well," I said, gently divesting myself of James's arms, "this could present a problem." From the refrigerator I took a handful of fresh parsley, which I placed on a cutting board. "But I think I have an idea of how we might work around that."

James gave me a studied look, his mouth tugged into a small frown. He picked up a cleaver and began slicing the parsley leaves, his movements awkward and sloppy, as though he didn't know what to do with the knife or the pile of herbs. Gently I took the cleaver from him, bunched the leaves together, and showed him how to chop efficiently.

"Thanks," he murmured. I gave him back the cleaver and he set clumsily about mimicking my technique.

"I think you might as well tell me what I'm supposed to be curious about," I said softly, considering the way his wrist bobbed over the cutting board. Not taking my eyes off of his hands, I sprinkled some salt into the pot, brow furrowed. "Because I am very curious."

As the evening wore into night, James and I found ourselves seated at the kitchen table with rolls of parchment spread before us, our dishes piled out of the way upon the counter. Quill in hand and with calm and measured focus, James deftly sketched a map of Headquarters as I'd never seen it before. Minute by minute the number of hidden floors and passageways expanded, snaking under the surrounding land and buildings and innervating the escape network at King's Cross like a great web of moving tendrils. Several passageways cut straight through the Gringotts vaults, finally surfacing in manholes, portkey depots, and train stations miles away.

"And your record rooms, if you want to call them that," James said, chewing his lip, "are going to be here - " he scratched an X over one of the hidden upper floors of Headquarters - "and roughly here and here." He scratched another pair of Xs over the deepest floors of the building, nestled in the spaces between Gringotts vaults. "Socked away in enchanted rooms I probably shouldn't know about. The ones on the bottom levels are definitely top-secret, as far as I know only our spies and maybe a handful of other people can get in. The top floor is where the less sensitive stuff goes. Or at least, that's what I think. That's the only room I've been able to get into and I reckon it's because the Order's already got my Patronus on file; they just weren't expecting anyone to find the place on their own."

I could not believe what I was hearing. The very presence of James's map was making me tremble. "So _that's_ why you wanted to be a Gringotts janitor. You just said you did it to suck up to Moody, but _this _is what you've been after all this time."

James's expression was somewhere between a sheepish blush and a self-satisfied smirk. "Sirius and Remus helped me. We do have a way with maps."

"I can see why you didn't tell anyone about this."

"Yeah. So I hope you have a good plan for keeping it out of the way of any pesky Legilimens you might run into."

At this I took my wand out from behind my ear and flicked it at the kitchen cupboards. A pair of saucepans flew out, and I levitated them idly over the table. "I do. But I'm going to want access to your Gringotts vault."

James burst out laughing.

"And," I added, feeling my own mouth quirk into a grin, "I'm going to want you to Transfigure these into Pensieve-like objects."

"What, my saucepans? But if I give you those, you won't cook out of them anymore."

"Poor little rich boy," I said, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. "Buy new ones, and let me pick them."

"Pensieves from kitchen crockery. You expect a lot of me, Evans."

I twirled a finger through his hair. "A little bird told me you can Transfigure yourself into a stag."

"I'll work on it," James said, licking his lips. His eyes held a dangerous twinkle.

x.x.x.x.x.x

As wickedly satisfying as it was to scheme with James, it was not especially helpful in solving the problems gnawing at the back of my mind - namely, figuring out what Snape could possibly want from me, and what my course of action should be when I finally met with Aidan Silverman to speak about Orion. Long after James had fallen asleep beside me, I lay awake, my heart racing with thoughts of duels and shadowed faces I could not quell.

A scratching noise broke my reverie. Noah the Owl was gnawing at the wires of his cage; he paused to look at me unblinkingly when I approached to let him out.

"What do you think I should do, Noah?" I whispered, letting him hop onto the towel I'd draped over my arm. He hooted noncommittally.

I sighed. "All right. I've got an idea. Why don't we go out for a bit."

Noah ruffled his feathers and blinked at me. He started a bit when I stood up, sinking his talons in, and I winced.

Behind me, James was still fast asleep, his chest exposed. He was half-clutching his pillow, sprawled with one leg thrown on top of the covers. I saw my shadow with the owl perched on my arm descend on him first as I went to him, knelt, and kissed him gently on the lips. His eyes fluttered a little at my touch; for a moment I contemplated waking him, but then I thought better of it, threw on my cloak, and walked softly from the room.

The night was cool and damp, the street still wet from the day's rainfall. Moving water hissed beneath the storm grates; the fog lit up in bright white nimbuses around the street lamps. Wand in my pocket, I walked purposefully; an odd feeling of clarity had settled over me. It was only half-past midnight. The Order would still be awake at Headquarters, with the night shifts grinding into their fourth hour on duty and the Aurors still in their offices, poring over the day's crop of fresh leads.

Noah began to fidget restlessly. I paused and held him up at eye level, looking at him seriously. "Make sure you come back to me, all right?" I said, and he puffed out his chest in response. "Go stretch your wings." I threw him into the air as I had seen Temujin do with his red-tailed hawk; with a flap of his wings he soared into the night sky, a silhouette against the half-moon.

I watched him fly away for a moment, considering. What was I trying to accomplish?

I slid my hand into my pocket and felt the folded parchment resisting my fingers. James's map. I had forgotten that I'd stuffed it into my jeans before going to bed. My heart sped up - but I was already filled with such momentum that, without a second thought, I touched my wand and Apparated into the main entrance point of Headquarters.

The lights were still on in Kingsley's office when I passed his door. Low voices murmured somewhere on the far end of the corridor, around a corner, and I saw shadows gesturing on the walls. I opened James's map and studied it.

The route down to the highest-security record rooms was long and winding. Surreptitiously I tapped the bricks on the wall behind the levitating houseplants in the common room and slipped into a dusty hidden passageway: It was a steep and sparse wooden staircase, almost a ladder, that coiled downward past the vents of at least four concealed floors I had never visited. Single torches marked each level, bursting into flame as I passed; then I descended beneath the deepest level, and the torches gave way to bright, silvery orbs suspended every fifteen or twenty feet. The staircase, now a fully vertical ladder, grew cool and metallic beneath my fingertips as I climbed lower and lower.

Then, suddenly and without warning, I felt a wave of something half-gas, half-liquid wash over me and rush down my throat, up my nose. Sputtering, I looked around: I was submerged up to my shoulders in a silvery whirlpool, and to my alarm, the mist was rising around me, hissing and twisting, curling around my limbs like ghostly tentacles.

_Dumbledore, _I thought, eyes filled with the blinding vapor. _This has got to be Dumbledore's magic._

Something dewy was gathering on my skin. I picked some up on my finger - it was like quicksilver, but volatile, streaming with smoky white mist. The dew soaked through my clothing and into my hair, began rolling down my body in tiny gleaming beads.

But then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the mist vanished. Confused, I touched my hair. It was dry.

A dark, pillared chamber had opened up beneath me. I let myself drop onto the stone floor. Spread throughout the chamber were a half-dozen marble pedestals, each shrouded by a thin veil of silver-blue light. Suspended an inch or so above each pedestal was a stone Pensieve. I sucked my breath in through my teeth.

The Pensieve on the far end of the chamber was glowing oddly, as if lit from beneath by a gold or crimson flame. Curious, I went to it and pushed my hand through its silvery veil, running my finger along the edge of the Pensieve. Suddenly an excruciating pain shot up my arm; with a yell I felt myself crumple against the floor.

An invisible hand was writing in the air above me: _Thief of thoughts, disarm for whom you love._

I stared in befuddlement. I did not know how I knew the riddle made no sense or how I knew what the hand was waiting for. The silver doe burst from the tip of my wand and cantered briefly around the chamber before coming to a soft stop before the glowing Pensieve, dipping her head gently, her nose touching the edge of the basin; and now the golden glow leapt, a bright flame. Squinting, I stood up.

A thin, molten script was tracing itself along the outer rim of the Pensieve:

_Lily Evans, Order of the Phoenix; Spy. When stepping over the dark threshold, leave your loved ones herein._

Trembling, I placed the tip of my wand against my temple and focused on the memory of the afternoon I had spent with James. The silvery thread fell into the shallow stone basin and expanded to fill it. With bated breath I bent and peered into the Pensieve.

_"You're really beautiful, Lily," James murmured, tracing his finger over the curve of the redheaded girl's hip. She looked languidly up at him._

_"Am I?"_

_"Yeah." Now his fingertip moved to her lips; she took it gently between her teeth._

My breath caught in my throat, and I stumbled back. I hadn't expected the memory to turn up so vividly, not like this. With a small thrill of panic I wondered what would have happened when I entered this room had I been an impostor - and then another, more disconcerting thought occurred to me: If I had had the mind to think of using Pensieves to sequester James's illicit information beyond reach of a slip of truth serum, and if the Order was already using this strategy independently - then surely someone in Voldemort's circle could have thought of it as well.

Transfixed and abashed, I peered back into the Pensieve and watched James's hands run up and down my body, watched his expression change from one of focus to one of ecstasy.

_Bloody buggering fuck, _I thought. _Is that _seriously_ what I look like when I'm having sex?_

I yanked my head out of the Pensieve and hooked the silver thread over the tip of my wand. This memory would stay with me for as long as I saw fit. Shaking all over, I made for the passage out of the chamber. Before I had gone five paces, the silver veil had re-folded around my Pensieve, the subtle shape of the doe now shifting softly in its glow.

x.x.x.x.x.x

As it turned out, all of the record rooms had opened themselves to me - it seemed that I hardly had to waltz inside before I was authorized, so despite the knowledge that I would be worthless with a wand once the sleep deprivation caught up with me, I took the night to have a thorough poke around.

The second record room on the bottom level of Headquarters, which James had referenced as "top secret", turned out to be a heavily protected anteroom connecting a deep network of underground passageways to the room of Pensieves, which I later found out was called the Chamber of Memories. In here I found a map - very much like the Marauder's Map - levitating in the center of the room; but rather than consisting of parchment and ink, it was pure blue and silver light. Tiny dots moved within its corridors and tunnels, bearing the names of various Order members as well as their current assignments. With morbid fascination I stood and watched a half-dozen dots pace aimlessly over the platforms at King's Cross, vanishing here and appearing there, and then gathering in knots as Gideon and Fabian Prewett arrived with two Muggle families. A small puff of silvery smoke heralded the arrival of the Phoenix Express, which - to my astonishment - continued winding its way over the map and clear over my raised hand, until at last it snaked off the border and winked into nothingness.

The record room on the upper level turned out to be more or less what James had claimed - a room filled with filing cabinets and shelves of bottled memories. My mouth went dry when I saw the names etched into the bottles: Alastor Moody. Elphias Doge. Caradoc Dearborn. Kingsley Shacklebolt. Alice Pearce. Frank Longbottom. Arthur Weasley. Minerva McGonagall.

And there were others - so many others, in fact, that the shelves were crammed to overflowing with flasks and bottles. Kingsley had easily three dozen flasks to himself; Moody had an entire two shelves.

With a trembling hand I reached up and took one of his flasks down. The thin inscription down its side read:

_June 22, 1978: HR. Witnessing recruitment of eight Hogwarts graduates. Risk profiles & Assignment #1._

I replaced the flask and took down another one, and another, and another:

_June 29, 1978. HR. Re-organization of human resources; placement of sentry shifts around escape network entry points. Re-routing escape line from Amsterdam to Paris._

_July 1, 1978: DE LEAD. Murder scene of half-blood Nina Kincaid, birthdate April 12 1957, cause of death: AK by Death Eater (case #1254)._

_July 3, 1978: DE CAPTURE. Case #1254 arrested in Piccadilly._

Suddenly something caught my eye. I set the flasks back on the shelf.

At the end of the aisle, the bottles were shifting. A new shelf was sliding into the space they had left. Curious, I approached it and knelt to get a better view.

I felt my eyes widen when I saw what was happening: A row of slender, iridescent bottles had materialized on the empty shelf - and every one of them bore my name.

"I see you've found your shelf," came a voice, and I jolted so violently that I smashed into the shelf behind me, scattering its contents all over the aisle; my heart was in my throat.

"I'm leaving," I said quickly. "Fuck - I spilled - sorry - "

"Don't worry about it," the person laughed, re-shelving the bottles with a flick of his wand. "You're supposed to be up here. Calm down."

Shaking, I looked up into the amused face of Frank Longbottom. His dark hair was tousled, and there was a scarf thrown loosely about his neck. He held out his hand.

Uncertainly, I took it and let him help me up. Frank stifled a yawn.

"Moody had you cleared to come up here three days ago," he said. "Congratulations on your promotion, Lily."

"Er," I replied stupidly, "thanks."

Frank seemed to be holding back a laugh. "You look like you're about ready to jump out the window. Let me guess - you thought you were snooping."

"Well, I - not really," I squeaked. I cleared my throat. "Actually, I thought I was until I realized I could just waltz right through the door. I was just - surprised to see you."

Now Frank's face broke into a wide grin. "Yeah, I don't know _why _we do this weird thing where we leave it up to our spies to figure that part out on their own. Good thing you did, or you'd probably never get started."

I raised an eyebrow. "So this was a test to see if I had the guts to be a spy?"

Frank's grin widened. "He was going to give you until the end of the week."

"Seriously? One week to find that ladder - _behind the fucking wall - _and just randomly think, 'Oh, hey, maybe it _isn't _just some stupid piece of wood put there so maintenance could fix our air vents more easily,' and actually _climb the bloody thing _down eight stories for no apparent reason?"

"Ladder?" Frank said, obviously feigning ignorance, "what ladder? I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know what I'm talking about," I growled. "And it's top security up here, so I'm going to say whatever I want."

"True, you can do that," Frank replied, still grinning brightly. "Though technically speaking, I'm not supposed to know what you're banging on about, even though I do. But that is neither here nor there." He levitated one of the flasks that had fallen on the floor and flicked it upwards with his wand, catching it deftly in his palm. "Moody knew what James, Sirius, and Remus were getting up to during their off-hours. He figured you'd have an advantage. Normally he gives new spies two or three weeks to figure it out. It's not like he doesn't drop hints here and there for them. But in your case he didn't feel the need. And," he added, nodding pointedly at me, "I think I would say he was right."

"Fair enough." I pursed my lips. "I assume there are other tests I'm supposed to pass, and that you're not allowed to tell me what they are."

Frank gazed bemusedly down the aisle for a moment. "Yeah, pretty much."

"I won't ask, then."

"Thanks."

I scowled. "So what brings you up here so early? Last I checked, only baby spies with authority problems bother coming up here when they think nobody else is going to be around."

"Oh, Auror business, boring stuff." Frank began flicking through a shelf of vials bearing his name. "I'm making duplicates of a couple of things I saw in the last wrecked kitchen I visited. Can't leave half my brain with the Ministry and not back it up, you know."

"Really."

"Sounds kind of sinister, doesn't it? I mean, who knows what the bloody Minister of Magic does with people's precious bits when they're not there to keep an eye on them?"

"All right, granted," I said, laughing despite myself. "But really, why now?"

"My office at the Ministry isn't going to occupy itself. I work there eight to four, but like I said, I wanted to back up a couple of recent leads on a couple of Death Eaters I've been tracking. I like a morning schedule."

"Right, sure," I replied. I was beginning to feel a bit foolish. "Sorry, didn't mean to pry. Anyway, I'm here on business too, I guess. Alice said she was keeping an eye on Severus Snape. I'm curious about what he's been up to. Could you point me to her shelf?"

Frank raised an eyebrow, but didn't question me. "Round the corner to your left."

"Thanks."

Alice's bottles were a deep, opaque blue, and perfectly spherical; I had to squint to read the inscriptions down their bellies. Lighting my wand, I rummaged through her collection until I found what looked like something useful:

_March 2, 1979. DE TRACKING. Severus Snape, case #1678. Minor altercation with Dementors._

Heart thumping nervously, I took the sphere off the shelf and brought it to the Pensieve levitating in the center of the room, where I poured out the contents of the bottle. I bent over the stone basin and peered inside.

In a flash the shelves and filing cabinets vanished, and I was watching Alice, crouched in a clump of bushes, from a dark hilltop under a crescent moon. Two shadowed figures about two hundred feet away were stumbling, gasping even, their robes billowing in the icy wind. I saw Alice shuddering, holding her breath, her eyes squeezed shut - and as the deep, freezing despair gripped me as well, I understood: There were Dementors nearby, and Alice did not want to cast her Patronus and give up her position.

_What could possibly motivate such stupidity? _I thought incredulously, but as the two hooded figures stumbled within earshot, that became clear as well.

"S-Severus - what are you waiting for - get _rid of them - "_

"They are under strict orders not to touch us," Snape hissed, shoving his companion forward. "We'll give ourselves away - we're in a No Man's Land right now, this place is crawling with Dumbledore's lot, we need to get in and get out - "

"But I c-c-can't - t-take it anymore - you and your stupid fancy for that Mudblood girl - w-why-y-y - do you even t-think sh-she - AAARRGGHHHH!"

Alice's knuckles went white around her wand, and she put her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream; a cloud of Dementors had descended, voracious, at the sound of Snape's companion stuttering. Snape moved so quickly that I hardly saw what he was doing.

The Patronus exploded from his wand in a flash of blinding white light. I saw Alice's eyes go wide with shock and her wand drop out of her hand. Blinking furiously against the afterimage burning in my retinas, I looked up to find the source of the light.

For a moment my heart seemed to seize up - Was I imagining things - how could I have cast a Patronus?But then the brilliant silver doe bounded into the sky, and as the Dementors flew back, I realized: The Patronus belonged to Snape.

And then the scene dissolved. I was on my knees in the record room, bent double over the Pensieve.

_Snape's Patronus is identical to mine._

My heart was fluttering, panicked and flighty. I thought back to my Hogwarts years - had I ever seen Snape cast a Patronus? - Yes, once - in Defense Against the Dark Arts. I couldn't for the life of me remember what shape his Patronus had taken - perhaps he'd only managed a weak silver mist, and that was why I couldn't recall? - But whatever his Patronus had been that day, it hadn't been a doe, I was certain of that.

_My Patronus is a doe…because James's is a stag. Because James's Animagus form is a stag. Because I love James._

Numbly I got to my feet. I brushed some dust off of my cloak. I did not want to think about what was so glaringly obvious, did not want to think about what I had suspected for years.

A shuffling noise in the stacks told me that Frank had finished his duplicates. The sudden silence after that told me I was alone.

x.x.x.x.x.x

After spending the rest of the morning scouring Alice's memories - fruitlessly - for more information on Snape, I left Headquarters, exhausted and numb between the eyes. The sun was shining cheerily down on London today, promising a spring thaw; the brightness of it intensified my mental weariness. Thinking I might buy myself a coffee or a cup of tea before stumbling home to sleep, I set out for Diagon Alley.

I found Noah the Owl perched expectantly up a tree near the Leaky Cauldron. Upon seeing me he spread his wings and glided down to my outstretched arm, where he chirped curiously at me.

"Long story, mate," I said tiredly. _And now I am talking to an owl. Clearly I have gone barking mad. _Unfazed by these thoughts, I continued. "You probably don't have the attention span for it, honestly. I almost don't."

This time Noah hooted, ruffled his wing feathers a bit, and stuck out a talon. I hadn't even noticed the envelope tied to his leg.

"Bloody hell," I muttered. Clumsily I untied the knot and freed the envelope, which I then ripped open with my teeth - and very unceremoniously drooled on. With a small groan I pulled the letter out and opened it, the now-soggy envelope still pressed between my lips.

_Frank and Alice will be exchanging vows on June 1st, 1979._

_This day will be most joyful if you would join us for the ceremony, reception, and dancing. Please RSVP no later than May 8, 1979. (For security reasons, the location will only be disclosed in person.)_

There was a post script scribbled in pearly crimson ink at the bottom of the invitation:

_Lily, I would love it if you'd be my maid of honor. Obviously you're not going to have time to bother fussing over the intricate details of my wedding, so consider this a request just to have tea with me more often and give a toast on the wedding day. I miss you, my friend._

_P.P.S. When are you finally going to marry James? Life is short and you two are such a beautiful couple._

I took the envelope out of my mouth and closed my eyes. Married. Alice and Frank were getting married. They were so close to the wedding date that they had begun sending out invitations.

A feeling of longing had swelled up in my chest. James was still only my boyfriend - would he react badly if I proposed, rather than wait for him? What if I died next week, or tomorrow morning? We were fighting a war side by side, or at least we would be soon. Our Patronuses matched. What was he waiting for?

My knees felt weak. The thought of Alice's wedding, my growing uncertainty over whether James would put a ring on my finger, Moody's apparent desire to test me, the image of Snape's Patronus leaping skyward exactly as mine always had - it was too much. I felt dizzy and unsteady on my feet. Leaning back against the window of the Leaky Cauldron, I took a deep breath and held it for a count of ten. Noah shifted his talons and gave a trilling chirp.

I opened my eyes. The glare of melting snow under the sunny sky nearly blinded me. Noah was fidgeting purposefully, staring at me with what looked like impatience. I gave him a strange look. "I thought owls were supposed to be stupid or something."

Noah snapped his beak.

"Okay, so you're obviously brilliant," I amended. _Or at least smart enough to make me feel like I'm not having a one-sided conversation. _"I want you to deliver some mail for me."

Noah blinked expectantly. I shoved the door of the Leaky Cauldron open and stepped inside, where I went to a small table by the window and ordered a sandwich and a cup of soup. For some time I just sat there in silence, chewing slowly, watching in fascination as Noah nipped curiously at my sandwich and then puffed out his feathers in distaste.

"Don't worry, you're not supposed to like bread anyway," I said, moving the sandwich plate away from him. Feeling moderately energized by the food, I began digging through my cloak pockets for something to write with. After a moment my fingers closed around a ball-point pen and a scrap of typewriter paper. I frowned. I had nothing even closely resembling an envelope.

Noah continued to stare expectantly at me. With a sigh, I smoothed the paper over the tabletop and began to write.

_Dear Sev._

I paused briefly and considered. Was I being too presumptuous?

_Fuck it,_ I thought. If his Patronus was a doe, then I had much more to work with than I'd initially thought.

_I don't know what you think you're getting up to, but you had better bloody well explain yourself. Fascinating that you'd come and find me against my will after all these years. You must have been snooping on me quite a while to know where I'd be. Is this about James again? Because if it is, I'd love to hear it. I could use a good laugh._

_I don't understand what a Death Eater thinks he could help me with, or why he thinks I should trust him. If this is about us being old friends, spare me. Consider yourself lucky that I didn't know you had the Dark Mark that day I saw you skulking around in the bloody breakfast room. Come out and tell me exactly what you are doing, and if I find that there is in fact something in this for me, I will consider not hunting you down immediately and making your life living hell._

_That is a threat. Expect me to make good on it. Meet me at Tommy O'Toole's Pub tomorrow at seven PM and be ready to talk. And don't swoop in there like an overgrown bat. Wear Muggle clothes._

_Love,_

_Lily._

There. That would get a rise out of him. I wanted him emotionally labile and uncertain of what I would do when he met me - and somehow, I did not know how, I was absolutely certain that he would.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Tommy O'Toole's was buzzing when I arrived at six forty-five the following day. It was a Friday night and the dinner crowd had just begun flooding the pubs and restaurants of London; I got myself a table for two, discreetly cast Alice's speech-concealing charm, and ordered a coffee.

I had dressed for for effect today - I wore a tailored black coat, dark bluejeans, and black leather boots, with my hair falling loose in a wavy red mane over my back and shoulders. I had concealed and powdered the dark under-eye circles that would give me away as tired and weak, and had finished them off with a sweep of deep green, nearly black, eyeliner. A few dashes of eyeshadow to soften the lines had left me looking dangerous.

I wanted Snape to eat his heart out over what that despicable, arrogant James Potter had taken from him. I wanted to force him to play by my rules - and if I had to use my sex appeal to do it, then all the better: If he loved me, then I could crush him like an insect. The thought of it pumped my veins full of adrenaline and set my heart racing.

I took a breath to still my trembling hands. It was six fifty-five.

On the other end of the bar, someone struck the piano and began playing a raucous line of blues. Cheers broke out and beer tankards clinked. That was when the door swung open, jangling, and revealed Snape's hunched silhouette. He was wearing a black trench coat. His hair, grown past his chin, hung un-combed in front of his eyes; his lips were pressed tightly together and his hands were shoved deep into his pockets. There was about a week's growth of stubble on his chin.

"Nice of you to come," I said coolly.

Snape's eyes snapped up, and for a split second I saw his face twitch. Stiffly, he pulled out his chair and sat down.

"So let's get down to it, shall we?" I gave my hair a little toss and sat back, folding my hands on the table. With satisfaction I noticed that his gaze was fixed staunchly upon my lips, and that he seemed to be struggling to speak. "Why did you find me?"

Snape looked lost and anguished. For several moments he was silent.

Then, in a low, tight voice, he said, "To warn you."

I narrowed my eyes to slits. "And what does a Death Eater want to warn me about? I'm curious. Why would you try to help a Mudblood like me?"

Snape flinched as if I'd slapped him. He looked away. "You - " he seemed unable to form the words. Then: "You're putting yourself in danger." Now he met my eyes, and his expression was one of barely controlled, pleading despair. "Let me help you. He will kill you. Please - " He reached across the table to grip my hand; repulsed, I withdrew it. He leaned forward, his eyes wild. "Just let me help you."

I kept my eyes trained coldly on his imploring face. Shifting in my seat, I folded my arms across my chest. "Well, why don't you fill me in on what you seem to think I need help with?"

"The Dark Lord knows someone in your - in your ranks - is speaking to the families of his victims - " Snape began wringing his hands. "He's amused - vengeful - he plans to punish the person. He will make an example of you."

"And who told him 'someone' was talking to his victims?" I said softly, smiling: Real anger was beating in my blood now, and I felt cold, reckless. "Couldn't have been any of those shit-for-brains morons you lot go swooping around at night with, killing people without even bothering with a Silencing Charm to hide their screams. In fact," I whispered, leaning forward so that Snape's face was six inches from my own, "You're the smartest, sneakiest one of all of them. So sneaky I might even wager a guess it was you." With a delicate fingertip, I lifted his chin so that he was forced to look at me. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Am I right?"

"He doesn't know it's you," Snape said through gritted teeth. Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. "He doesn't know it's you, he suspects it could be anyone, but he is paying attention to you now. Lily, please. Let me help you."

"And how could you possibly do that?"

"I'll tell you which - which of us is tracking you," Snape gasped. "Everything I know."

I sat back and considered him through narrowed eyes. He seemed to shrink behind the table.

"And what do you expect of me in return?" I said quietly, measuring my words. "What do you want, Sev?"

His jaw went slack. He stared at me. "What do I want?" he repeated dumbly. "Lily, I…" he trailed off and raked his hands through his hair, pulling it; he looked quite deranged. "What do I want?"

"Spit it out," I said coldly.

"I want - " he stopped. Pressed his palms together, rested his forehead against his fingertips. He closed his eyes. "I want…your friendship."

"My friendship," I repeated. "Really? You stalk me, you spy on me, but you're not bold enough to tell me you want more than my friendship. Funny, Sev, I always knew there was a reason I picked James Potter over you."

"STOP!" Snape bellowed, slamming his fists onto the table. A couple of patrons turned and stared at us; Snape shrank back into his seat. His face was full of rage and anguish. "You've already threatened me, I read your letter, don't think I won't remember every word of it - you've been rubbing Potter in my face long enough - you're with him just to spite me - I came here to help you and you act as if we never…" he sucked in a deep breath, "…as if I haven't always…done right by you…"

"Done right by me?" I hissed. "Done _right _by me?"

"Then let me do right by you now!"

I clenched my fists, fighting to control the upwelling of fury that was threatening to topple my ability to be rational. _He's giving you a gift, _I thought, the blood thundering in my ears. _He's given no indication that he knows you're a spy. He thinks you're a babe in the woods. He has just offered to sell all of his companions to you. Do not fuck this up over an adolescent grudge._

Finally I swallowed my anger. "Who is tracking me now, then?"

Snape stared blankly at me. "Lucius Malfoy. The Dark Lord is testing his loyalty. I don't know who he has tracking your other people."

"And what would he have Malfoy do to me?"

"Do to you?" Snape said, looking utterly confused. "How should I know? But Malfoy is a coward. I would guess that his mission is to find you and take you out for a public torture party. He'll pass it off to someone else if he gets the chance."

I barked out a laugh. "A coward? Malfoy is a coward for not wanting to publicly torture a nineteen-year-old girl?"

"You know what I mean!" Snape hissed. "He only cares about his own survival, he's afraid the Dark Lord will slaughter him if he doesn't comply. There are a lot of us who take orders for exactly that reason!"

"So why don't you all grow up and leave?" I sneered. "At least then you could be honest about it."

Snape withered in his chair. "Malfoy would most likely pass the job to Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange. He would be able to hide behind them then. If he does, then I am begging you, go into hiding. You're no match for the Lestranges."

"No," I said, the words seeming to come from somewhere outside of me, "_they _are no match for _me. _And neither are you, Sev." I dropped some money onto the table and finished my coffee in one gulp. "Remember that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have things to attend to."

"Wait," Snape said, grabbing my arm. Feeling him dig his fingers in, I wrenched my arm free. "When do we meet again?"

"Oh, I don't know," I replied, standing up to leave. "Whenever I feel like it."

And with that I strode out the door and left Snape, hunched and trembling, at the table.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Out in the streets of London I finally allowed myself to collapse against a phone booth, shaking uncontrollably, colt-legged and stumbling over the stilettos of my boots. I imagined grinding a long, pointed heel into Snape's palm, imagined him screaming, and had to fight the urge to vomit. I knew I had just tortured him in cold blood. And it had been easy - much easier than I had expected. He had practically lain down and invited me to manipulate him. I had sold him a bluff and he had bought every single word of it. And I had gotten the information I needed. Interviewing the Silvermans would probably mean contending with a trap set by either the Lestranges or Lucius Malfoy.

Despite the caffeine, I felt drunk. The ground was unstable beneath my feet. Staggering away from the phone booth, I felt myself beginning to sob, hot, stinging tears burning down my cheeks. Several passersby looked at me strangely, and I wanted to yell and swear at them - but the only sounds that came from my throat were short, choked gasps.

Some time later, and I don't know how I managed it, I found my way back to James's flat, where he was puttering about the kitchen making sandwiches. He was sweaty and bruised - from dueling practice, no doubt - but he seemed to be in reasonably good spirits. His face lit up when he saw me.

"Hey, Lily," he grinned, tossing a sandwich onto a plate and bringing it to me. "Didn't think you were coming tonight, are you - " Suddenly his grin faded and he put the sandwich down. He cupped my face in his hands. "What happened?"

Unable to speak, I merely stood before him, my eyes blurring with a fresh wave of tears. James put his arms around me, pressing my face into his shoulder. "What happened?" he breathed again. "What did you do?"

I could not tell him I had effectively had my first successful spy mission. I shuddered and wept.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**A/N: **Wow, such an intense chapter. Not quite what I'd been imagining when I first outlined it, but I've decided I quite like it - hopefully you did too. Thanks for reading. Reviewing is optional, but I'd love it if you did. :)

Lastly, to _another anonymous: _I guess the prologue is kind of vague and weirdly structured, huh? I never really thought about it before, but I think you're right. Thanks for reviewing!

- Silverspinner


	12. For Whom You Love

**- Chapter 11: For Whom You Love -**

The year between my first real conversation with Severus Snape and my final year in Muggle primary school passed quietly and for the most part uneventfully. My relationship with Petunia had settled into a loving but uncomfortable equilibrium, in which I (usually) allowed her to jest that I was a freak and she (sometimes) allowed me to show her my increasingly-less-accidental magic. I knew from the look in her eyes each time a flower opened itself in my palm that she was bitterly jealous - so I made small gifts for her: Tiny white wildflowers with petals that shimmered like mother-of-pearl, hovering sparrow feathers, wind chimes that tinkled without wind - which she cherished with a degree of tenderness quite beyond that which she had ever shown me.

One winter night, I awoke to the sound of crying coming from Petunia's room. It was just past Valentine's Day, a week night. Beams of moonlight cut down the silent hallway, bending with the branches of our cherry tree as it bowed in the icy wind. I padded softly to her door and peeked in on her.

She was curled up in her bed, her face and shoulders illuminated by the light from the window. Her legs were tangled up in a mess of covers, and she quivered there, unaware that I had entered the room.

"Tuney, what's wrong?" I whispered, sitting down on the foot of her bed.

She started, but then she turned away. "It's nothing. It's stupid."

"No, tell me." I drew up my legs. "I'm your sister."

Slowly, she pulled herself into a sitting position. A curtain of blonde hair fell over her arms as she hid her face from me. She was clutching something in her fist.

"What's that?" I touched her hand, and her fist tightened - but when she failed to protest, I pried her fingers open and extracted the crumpled piece of stationery. Petunia's hand went limp.

"It's from a boy," she said miserably. "Fine, go ahead. Read it."

I unfolded the paper and held it up to the window. It was bordered in pale pink, with something iridescent glimmering in the corner where Petunia had signed her name. Her penmanship was careful, a delicate progression of loops and small flourishes; clearly she had taken pains in writing this letter. I furrowed my brow.

_Hi Jacob, _

_I just wanted to wish you a very happy Valentine's Day. _

_(I also sort of like you. You have very nice eyes. Please tell me if you'd like to go to the park together sometime.)_

_- Petunia Evans_

And then his response:

_Hi Petunia, _

_Thanks. This was very nice of you. But I think it would be awkward if we went to the park together. _

_Happy Valentine's Day. _

_- Jacob_

The iridescent something stuck to the bottom corner of the card was one of my tiny white flowers, gently glimmering, fresh and resilient as though I'd picked it an hour ago. I looked gravely up at my sister. She was staring despondently out the window, her knees drawn flush against her chest.

"You actually gave this to him?" I asked, my voice a mixture of horror and awe.

Lip trembling, Petunia nodded.

"That was awfully brave." At this Petunia sniffled loudly and buried her face in her arms. "And mental," I added.

"I don't know why I did it. I'm so stupid. And ugly. Lily, why am I so ugly?"

"You're not ugly," I replied, aghast. "I think you're really pretty!"

Petunia lifted her face. Her hair was tangled and all over the place, her eyes wet with tears. "But you're not a boy," she whispered. "You're my little sister."

"So what? That means I know best. I know what you look like in your _underwear."_

Despite herself, Petunia cracked a reluctant little smile. "Oh, so you know how knobbly my knees are, then. Great. Now I bet you're going to tell everyone."

"Why would I do that? Why would any of my friends even _care _what your knees look like? They see them every time you wear a dress, anyway."

Petunia sniffled and rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

There was a beat of silence. Then, trying to lift the mood, I put on my most cheerful voice and said, "I really don't get why you think you're ugly. You're being silly."

At this Petunia rounded on me and snatched the crumpled valentine. "This," she said fiercely, brandishing it in my face. _"This_ is proof that I'm ugly. I'm thirteen and no boys like me. Why? I'm not stupid. I'm perfectly nice to them. There's no reason for them all to _ignore _me - Lily, they do it because I'm _ugly! _Can't you see?"

"No," I said truthfully. "No, I really don't see."

"Lily," Petunia moaned, clutching fistfuls of hair. "Oh, Lily, bloody hell. You're only ten, how could you possibly get it? - I'm sorry, you must think I've lost my head - and I wasted one of your flowers on that git, God, what is wrong with me?"

Awkwardly, I patted her on the shoulder. "Yep. You've definitely gone batty."

"I wish I were your age again, back when boys were still icky. Life was so much _simpler."_

"Nah, boys are always icky. It's just that girls go crazy and like them anyway. Speaking of," I added, wrinkling my nose, "you're contaminating me!"

That got the reaction I was looking for. Petunia laughed and wiped her eyes. "I can't contaminate you, I haven't touched any boys yet."

"Oh. Good."

A trembling smile tugged at the corner of Petunia's mouth. "But you're always hanging about with those O'Neill twins - and that Snape kid. You can't think boys are _that _gross."

"What? I don't have a crush on them or anything."

"That's probably a good thing. Liking boys usually doesn't end well for anyone."

"What about Mum and Dad? They had to like each other in order to get married."

Petunia snorted. "That's _different."_

"Now I'm really confused."

Petunia sighed and looked down at the valentine in her hands, picking at the flower with a fingernail. "Dad liked Mum back. That's why it's different."

"Yeah, and they didn't get married until they were twenty-five. You're only thirteen. You've got twelve years to get married!"

She smiled a little. "I guess so."

"It's _true_," I insisted. "Jacob's a stupid prat anyway, isn't he? He'd have to be, if he thinks just going to the park is awkward."

Petunia chuckled. "Right. No social skills whatsoever."

"Exactly. There's a reason men need women around! Women make them less stupid. Only it takes a long time for the men to learn, because they're really stupid to begin with."

Now Petunia began giggling outright. "I should record you on tape. You're outrageous."

"Hey, I know how things work."

"Yeah," she laughed, wiping the last of her tears on her fist. "You definitely do." She leaned back against the wall and pushed a handful of hair out of her face. For a few quiet moments she gazed wistfully out the window; not wanting to break the silence, I sidled up next to her and leaned against the wall, too.

"I really can't believe I wasted this on him," Petunia sighed after a time, holding the tiny wildflower gently between her fingertips. It was missing a petal, and its pearly sheen was fading. "I should have known I'd just destroy it."

"Maybe I can fix it," I offered. "Want me to try?"

Something dark - resentment, maybe - flickered in Petunia's eyes right then, but after a moment she held the flower out to me. She looked hesitant.

Carefully, I took the wildflower in my palm. It was wilting, its petals browning a little at the edges. Chewing my lip, I closed my eyes and focused.

_Pearl, _I thought, concentrating as hard as I could. I imagined sitting at the seashore and prying open an oyster with my fingers, digging into its flesh to find the pearl; I was holding my breath -

And suddenly the room was bursting with bright, iridescent sparks, swirling out of my hand like tiny shooting stars; Petunia gasped and lurched backward, knocking her head against the wall. Panicked, I waved my hands in an effort to quench the small meteor shower in Petunia's room - but this only caused them to multiply. With a small gasp I shoved my hands beneath me - perhaps that would contain the sparks? - but then Petunia put her hand on my shoulder.

"Lily, look," she breathed, and my eyes fell on the thing she had been looking at: The sparks were gathering brightly above her desk, swirling now, falling one by one onto the bouquet of enchanted wildflowers I had given her the previous summer. As the sparks landed, the flowers took up an ethereal glow and twisted skyward, petals bursting forth like tiny fireworks. Petunia clambered over my legs and planted her hands on the desk, her face so close to the flowers that her cheeks were nearly glowing.

"They just got bigger," she said breathlessly. "I think you - blimey, I think you turned one into a lily." She turned and looked back at me, her face a mix of wonder and envy. "How did you do that?"

"I - I really don't know," I replied, still staring in shock at the bouquet. "I've never, I mean - I've never been able to do anything like that before - "

"Oh, don't lie to me, Lily! You knew what you were doing - it was obvious, I saw the look on your face - you were concentrating on something." Now she was up on her knees before me, her hands on my shoulders, fingernails digging in. "How did you do it?" she demanded ferociously. "What did you do?"

"I just - really, Tuney, I don't know," I whispered, recoiling from her touch. "I just focused on making the flower shimmer again, I thought about getting a pearl out of an oyster, really, that's all - I have no idea how that happened - you _know _I have no idea how I've done any of the stuff I have."

There were tears welling in her eyes again, but she kept her face hard and expressionless. "Please leave my room, Lily," she said softly. "Thanks for the flowers. But I don't want to see you right now."

"What - why - "

"Just _go," _she said fiercely. "And don't come back."

"Tuney, I'm sorry, I didn't mean - "

"Yes you did. Now leave, before I throw you out!"

I felt as though she had punched me in the stomach. Wordlessly, I left the room; and as soon as the door clicked shut behind me I heard Petunia begin to sob into her pillow. I flung myself onto my bed and, once the covers were pulled safely over my head, I wept into my pillow, too.

x.x.x.x.x.x

The next day, during our recess hour, I sought out Severus Snape. I hadn't slept the previous night, and Petunia had been refusing to acknowledge my existence for the entire morning. By the end of lunch I was nearly in tears again, and oddly enough - or perhaps not oddly at all - I did not want to speak to any of my other friends. Edwin approached me and smashed a snowball onto my back, baiting me to join the snowball fight that was ensuing on the football field, but I merely glared at him until he shrugged and walked away.

Severus was leaning against the brick wall of the school building, arms folded across his chest, watching the other children play. His breath curled in a fine white mist around his mouth, seeming to wet the strands of forever-overgrown black hair hanging about his chin. He lurched away from the wall when he saw me, dropping his hands.

"Lily," he said eagerly, taking a step forward. "I was looking for you, but I didn't see you anywhere."

"I was just inside," I said tiredly. I leaned back against the wall and stared morosely out at the field, at the soggy snowballs flying between shrieking students. "Sev, my sister hates me."

Greedy curiosity flickered in his eyes. "Why would she hate you? That's stupid."

"She's jealous of me. I - I made some flowers, you know, nicer for her as a present." I felt my jaw beginning to tremble and I tried not to squeak or cry as I spoke. "She was all upset over some stupid boy, so I tried to make her - feel better…"

"So you did magic, then," Severus said, nodding. He reached out and touched my shoulder. I shivered and swallowed a sudden upwelling of tears, staring down at my boots.

"That's what you call it?" I asked dully. I was willing to believe almost anything at that point. "Magic? Really?"

"Well, obviously. What _else _would you call it?"

"I don't know." I wiped my eyes. Severus's face was alight with happiness; I smiled a little.

"Lily," he said fervently, "you're not going mad. It's magic, really it is. You're a witch. There's a whole society full of wizards and witches like you - "

This time I laughed. "Oh, come on, Sev. You keep calling me a witch, stop it, that's stupid - "

"No, I'm serious! Look." He picked up a handful of snow - and then I realized that the snow was floating in midair, inches above his palm, and my whole body went rigid. Time seemed to stop as I stared at the snow levitating calmly before me. I felt as though Severus's eyes might burn straight through mine.

"How did you do that," I whispered in awe. In response the snow burst into a shower of swirling flakes and drifted quietly back to the ground.

"Magic," Severus replied, and his voice right then was filled with all the wonder of the world. My heart skipped, thudded - and I thought for a moment that I might be dreaming. It couldn't be real - could it?

"We're almost eleven," Severus said seriously. "It won't be long now before we're both out of here forever. To be with our own kind. You'll be away from your sister - she doesn't understand you - and I'll - " he paused, then looked skyward and took a deep, vindicated breath. "I'll be away from my father."

I looked at him with longing and disbelief. He wasn't serious. He couldn't be.

"Let's walk," he said, his face breaking into the first grin I had ever seen on him. "You're ready, you'll believe me now. I've got _loads_ of stuff to tell you."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Life was never quite the same after that afternoon spent wandering like two young birds about the school grounds, talking - arguing at first - about the realness of magic. For the first half hour I did not believe him, refused to believe him, could not fit my brain around the realness of magic; then, for the second half hour, I could hardly stop laughing. The joy of it bubbled up from the pit of my stomach, and I felt warm, weightless, and _alive: _Magic was real. _I _was real - and so was everything about me.

My friendship with Severus Snape began in earnest that winter. The things he talked about - Hogwarts, owls that delivered mail, wands and wandmakers, goblins and dragons, Dark Magic and Light Magic, spellbooks, unicorns, flying broomsticks - left me entranced and hungry for more. Petunia said it was all hogwash, when I dared to tell her, and Edwin laughed his head off and yelled "Loopy Lily! Loopy Lily!" every time he saw me for a month straight. My parents, for their part, merely raised their eyebrows - and then whispered to one another in low, confused tones when they thought I wasn't listening. Between all of this, I didn't know what to think - I wanted everything Severus talked about to be true, but the more he talked, the more outlandish it seemed to me. That I was possessed some weird magical powers seemed less outrageous than the idea of there being an entire society of witches and wizards that nobody seemed to have the slightest inkling existed; but I allowed myself nevertheless to believe when Severus spoke to me. Here, an answer to my silent yearnings, was a boy who understood me.

And so the world turned. The nights stayed dark. The days stayed bright. My life, with the exception of those hours spent with Severus, remained ordinary.

The spring after that Valentine's Day - and my eleventh birthday - broke gently through the last damp sheets of melting snow, speckling the land with tender green and leaving pools of dappled sun beneath the budding trees. It had been a sloppy winter, with sleet storms continually varnishing the snowy streets, breaking saplings under curtains of ice and prompting my mother not to let Petunia or me leave the house without metal cleats strapped onto our boots. Indeed, I had spent so much of the winter piled under extra layers of clothing and general bad-weather equipment that I hardly noticed the fact that I finished the winter nearly three inches taller than I had begun it.

It wasn't until I was getting dressed for school one clear morning that spring that I noticed an odd soreness in my chest, focused right beneath my nipples - when I touched them, they hurt. Standing in front of the mirror, I frowned, and my flat-chested, pixie-faced reflection frowned back. I lifted my shirt and examined myself, pinching and twisting here and there. Touching the tender spots again, I winced - maybe I had felt something, smaller than a pea, where my skin was hurting? And then it occurred to me, a dreadful thought: Did I have breast cancer?

_Don't be silly, _I told myself, fumbling for my hairbrush. _You don't even have breasts yet. You can't possibly have cancer in something that doesn't exist, right?_

"Lily!" came my father's voice, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. "Your friend is here to walk you to school!"

"Coming!" I called shakily. I was trembling all over. Hastily I shoved my legs into a pair of jeans and snatched my favorite hooded knit sweater before skidding down the stairs in socks that were still slightly too big. Dad was standing at the front door with an odd look on his face.

"Looks like I'll have to get myself a shotgun, Lily," he said, his lips twisted into an ironic smile. I looked up in confusion and he simply slung my rucksack over my shoulder. "There's a young man outside waiting to take you away from me."

It took me a moment to process this, but then, in spite of myself, I burst out giggling. The strap of my rucksack rubbed uncomfortably against a sore spot on my chest and I bit back my laughter. "Oh, that's Noah, you know him," I said, grinning up at my father. "I'm not _dating _him."

"And you shouldn't even be thinking about it, young lady!" I giggled again at the sight of Dad so flustered. He bent down and pinched my cheek. "You," he said emphatically, "are still a _little girl."_

"Oh, come on. I'm not _that _little."

"You're eleven," Dad said, his face a mix of worry and stern amusement. "Just old enough to think you're not little anymore, but have no idea how wrong you are."

"No, that's Petunia. I'm not a teenager yet."

Dad blew out a breath and scratched his forehead. "Right, and neither of you will bloody let me forget it. Lily," he said, pushing a few strands of hair behind my ear, "that kid outside thinks you're very pretty, I saw the look on his face when he asked for you." Dad gave a lopsided grin, a grin I recognized as my own. "Now, obviously he's right and he has very good taste. But," and now his tone turned serious, "if he tries to touch you, or sweet-talk you, like 'Hey, baby,' - "

"Dad, stop!" I exclaimed. I felt a deep blush warming my cheeks. "He's _twelve!"_

"Twelve-year-old boys love pretty girls, darling. I would know, I was one," Dad said, waggling his finger in my face. "There was one extremely pretty little brunette in my class when I was twelve, and I could hardly keep my hands off her - "

"No, you never," I said delightedly. _"You?"_

"Oh yes. I tried to kiss her once. She slapped me. Which was the right thing to do." He quirked an eyebrow at me and I giggled. "So, Lily. I fully expect you to slap Noah O'Neill to the moon if he tries to kiss you."

"But he's my friend," I protested. "He's too nice, he wouldn't anyway - "

"Lily," Dad said sternly, his green eyes piercing mine. I shrank a little under his gaze. "I'm being serious. I realize you and he have been friends for a couple of years. I know he's a very nice kid. But I know what's going through his head. And right now, you are too young for that. Be his friend. When you're older, you can decide if you want to be more than that. Whether he gets to lay a hand on you is _your _choice. He must ask permission of you, and he is not allowed to touch unless you say yes. That's called respect, and if he doesn't respect you, you don't let him come near you. Understood?"

Biting my lip, I nodded.

"All right. Good." He seemed satisfied. "You can think about kissing him when you get to secondary school if you want. But for now, if he tries to pull any moves on you, I expect you to slap him."

I looked down at my shoes. "I don't think I'll have to."

"All right. Good." He bent down and kissed my forehead. "Now I suppose you should let that young man walk you to school, or your mum'll be getting a call from your teacher screeching about where you are, and my boss'll have my head for being late." Dad opened the door for me. "Off with you, lass."

"Bye, Dad."

The door clicked shut behind me. Out on the front stoop stood Noah with his hands in his pockets, politely examining our stout little rosebush and digging his sneakered toes into the soft earth on the side of our garden path. His eyes lit up when he saw me. "Wotcher, Lily," he said, grinning. "Your dad ready to beat me up yet?"

"What?" I laughed. "No, my dad's not going to beat you up, that'd be mad!"

"He just got a very stern fatherly look on his face when he saw me," Noah replied as we began to walk. He had a smiling, ironic twinkle in his eye that sent a shiver up my spine. "Like an ape facing off with an intruder."

I burst out laughing. "An _ape? _Noah, that's awful!"

"Yeah. A big, hairy ape." Noah hooted and began beating his chest, making scratching movements. "King of the rock!"

"But my dad's skinny," I giggled. "Not very big for an ape."

"That's why he's got to piss on a couple of extra fire hydrants. Authority!"

"Noah!" I was laughing harder than I wanted to - I was having trouble breathing. "Wash your mouth out with soap, young man! You kiss your _mother_ with that mouth?"

"She doesn't know. I'm a good boy when she's around."

I made to slug him with my rucksack, but he caught it before it landed.

"Try again," he grinned. He dropped my rucksack so that it smacked loudly against my knees. Then, with great ado, he bowed and held his hand out. "Shall I take your purse, my good lady?"

Still laughing, I hitched up my rucksack by the strap. "It's not a purse, you wanker, come on!"

"I'm just being a berk. It's funny."

I rolled my eyes. "Boys are so immature."

Now Noah smiled, tilting his head gently, and held out his hand again. "Actually, are you sure you don't want me to carry your stuff?"

My cheeks grew warm. There was something about the way he was looking at me that felt almost too sweet, something almost too disarming to bear. Biting my lip, I handed him my rucksack, which he slung easily over his shoulder.

"Thanks," I squeaked. I was suddenly feeling very shy.

"You're welcome," he said sweetly - and then he immediately beat a fist against his chest and gave a victorious hoot. "Now I get points for being mature!"

I groaned. "I should have known."

"Now hopefully your dad won't beat me up." He gave me an impish smile, which only made me blush more deeply. A cool spring breeze tousled his dark brown hair, and I found myself suddenly transfixed with it, this boy's just-verging-on-unruly hair, and the way his jaw seemed a little sharper this year, his lips a little less bitten. Perhaps it was the fact that my father had just spent ten minutes lecturing me on boys and their improperness - but there, in the morning sun, walking on the side of the road while he carried my schoolbooks, I could not bar the thought of kissing Noah from my mind. A strange tingle ran up my spine as I imagined it - and, thinking about how wet and sloppy my cheek always felt after Dad kissed me - I decided I did not quite like it. Not yet and possibly not ever.

"Are you all right?" Noah asked, looking amused. I snapped out of my reverie.

"I'm fine." I kicked a pebble down the gravel road and looked into the sky. The sun was rising redly in the east, staining the clouds with vibrant orange and rose. "I wonder if Sev's back in school today."

Walking beside me now, Noah raised an eyebrow. "Why do you like him so much?"

"Like him? He's my - well, he's my friend," I said, a bit abashedly. I folded my arms across my chest and the sore spots there made themselves felt.

"Yeah, I do see you two hanging about together a lot." His tone was carefully impassive - a tone I couldn't remember him ever using before. "What are you getting up to with him, anyway?"

"Nothing," I lied. Noah had witnessed my accidental magic only twice, and both times he had refused to believe his eyes. "Sev and I just get along on some things."

Noah raised an eyebrow.

"What!" I was indignant.

This time Noah cracked a grin. "You sure you're not going to run off and make little Snape babies?"

"Oh, shove it! And let's hurry up. We're going to be late."

To his credit, Noah did shove it - or rather, he did until he saw Severus and me on the playground together, huddled under the shade of a tree as Severus regaled me with tales of the Dark Wizards of the age. I was never sure after that if it was the rapt look on my face that set Noah off, or if it was just his burgeoning adolescence; I only knew that the moment he saw me, his eyes widened - and then narrowed with something that looked unnervingly close to possessiveness. Later that day he pulled me aside by the cuff of my sleeve and demanded to know what I had been doing with Severus, all huddled up like that, and the hurt and confusion rang raw in his voice.

"You shouldn't be hanging about with him," Noah had insisted fiercely, stepping close to me - too close, so that his face was less than a foot away from mine, so that I could see his every freckle and eyelash - and I had responded by jabbing my finger against his chest, pushing him away.

"And you," I'd shot back, "have no right to tell me who I can be friends with."

It would take me another year or so to understand the look of defeat that swept over his face right then, to realize that his demands really had nothing to do with being friends with anyone at all. But it would take precious little time after that for me to understand what power this gave me. The power to bend him and fold him, to make him suffer. This, I learned, was the power you granted to whom you loved.

x.x.x.x.x.x

The day after my encounter with Snape swept in dark and pouring, drowning the din of London traffic with the kind of deep and relentless thunder that shook windows and bones. I could feel the rain and wetness even in the deepest corridors of Headquarters, where every doorway was lit by a hovering lantern; my skin prickled at the very thought of it.

It was nearing ten o'clock that morning when the silver coin in my pocket began buzzing against my leg. I had just finished another round of leisurely snooping about the top-floor record room, and my knees and hips were still stiff from bending over the Pensieve; the coin was digging into a particularly sore spot. With a frown I removed it from my jeans and examined it.

_Report to my office in ten minutes. - M _

I gritted my teeth. What the bloody hell did he want with me this time? If he was going to shove another knee into my stomach, couldn't he have given me a whit more notice? _- Or better yet, _I thought with a sneer, _Maybe I'll challenge his authority and just not show up. See how I rank up with his testing scheme then. _

I straightened my cloak and swept down the corridor, thinking mutinous thoughts.

"Hey, hey, careful there, Evans!" exclaimed a voice as I smacked nearly face-first into what felt like a very solid, and decidedly tall, body. Stumbling backward, I looked up. It was Sirius, drenched from head to toe and caked with mud.

He raised an eyebrow. "Preoccupied?"

"Maybe. Where are you off to? It's ten o'clock. I thought you were supposed to be off protecting the innocence of the unsuspecting masses now."

Sirius's mouth twisted into an insolent grin. "Oh, but I am. Aren't you?"

"I'm headed to Moody's office. Or not. I haven't decided yet."

Sirius's expression flickered briefly to one of surprise - but then to a smirk. "No, you're going to want to be there for this one. The whole lot of us from our graduating year and a bunch of others are heading there now. The old man is doling out our assignments."

There was a flat pause. I stared at him. "Assignments? Really now."

"Really. And yes, now."

I exhaled. Sirius held out his arm. "Let's walk."

So we walked. The corridor outside Moody's office was noticeably warm, humming with the gaggle of people standing about inside; at a cursory glance, I saw the faces of Remus Lupin, Hestia Jones, Caradoc Dearborn, Marlene McKinnon, Alice Pearce, Frank Longbottom, Peter Pettigrew, and James, all of them crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in the tiny office, jostling the anti-dark magic gadgets spinning and smoking along the walls. Moody, presently scowling behind his desk, thumped his walking-stick as Sirius and I pushed into the room.

"Five minutes early and seven minutes too late! Where've you been, boy?"

"Running here as fast as my little legs would go," Sirius replied brightly; James hid a snigger. A hubbub of laughter rose as I wedged myself between him and Marlene, who smiled uncomfortably. James acknowledged my presence with a wink and a quick squeeze of my hand.

"Alright, that's enough!" Moody barked. Instantly the room fell quiet.

"You know why you're here," he said. His voice was low and grizzled, and he glared around at us for a good long moment, his magical eye punctuating the silence. In one sharp motion he drew his wand and slashed a couple of words into the air behind him:

"Divisions," he said, gesturing at the first hovering golden word. "I'm putting the lot of you into two different teams for the first main operation of the season." With another flourish of his wand: "Team one: Dearborn, Black, Lupin, Evans, and McKinnon. Team two: Longbottom, Potter, Jones, Pearce, and Pettigrew. I will switch you between teams at the start of every new mission according to individual competency.

"There are rules to fighting in the field. The rules are:

"One. Do not assume unnecessary, dumb shit risk if there is an obvious way of achieving the same end, but less stupidly. Potter, Black, this means you. You will watch each other's backs. You will _not _run around like blithering lunatics and get yourselves killed.

"Two: Do not abandon your comrades. We cannot afford to lose men and women unnecessarily. If you leave someone in the field, you must report immediately to Headquarters. We will dispatch a rescue team. We cannot afford to lose men and women unnecessarily. If you do not follow this rule, you will be expelled from the Order and blacklisted.

"Three: The senior Auror on each team will be in charge of leading missions at my discretion. Dearborn and Longbottom, that means you. You will distribute authority as you see fit. Your authority may be challenged on legitimate grounds such as safety or tactical consideration. If you have grievances, or if your mission is compromised by insubordination, report to me and we will take appropriate measures.

"Four: Take live prisoners whenever possible. Duel to capture first, kill second. We keep prisoners for interrogation.

"Five: Do not be squeamish about killing. You're fighters. You signed up for this. If your only option is to kill or be killed, then I expect you to kill. This isn't sentry duty anymore. Kill the enemy and save your friends, because now you're the ones carrying this show. You can cry about it later.

"And six: Killing or torturing unarmed civilians or bystanders, using them in any way as a shield, or holding them for ransom will be punished by imprisonment in Azkaban. So is any act that intentionally betrays your fellow Order members to the Death Eaters. We call that treason. And we punish accordingly. If you act like a Death Eater, we'll treat you like one. No exceptions."

"But unlike the Death Eaters, we'll give you a trial," came an amused voice from the back of the room. It was Caradoc Dearborn; long and lanky, he was perched on the windowsill, one leg dangling over the radiator. He wore a hint of a Dumbledore-like smile.

"Yes, yes, of course," Moody said, and his magical eye rolled practically into the ceiling, "you'll get a trial even if you don't deserve one. Just don't be a traitorous shit because then we'll have to waste time going through the motions to get your arse convicted. Follow the rules and none of that will happen. Capiche?"

"Tres capiche," Dearborn said cheerfully.

"Oh, put a lid on it, I don't keep you around because I like the sound of your voice," Moody snapped. Dearborn merely grinned. "Now everyone on Team Two, stay back with me to get your orders. Team One, fuck off for a while. Eat something, go have yourselves a laugh and joke, I don't care. I want you back here in an hour."

x.x.x.x.x.x

While the other group was being briefed, Sirius, Remus, and I wandered aimlessly about Diagon Alley, eating pumpkin sweets and sloshing through dirty puddles. The sun was shining with a gentle heat for the first time in months, so I had unbuttoned my cloak to take in some of this rare warmth.

"So what do you think it's going to be?" Remus asked, tossing a piece of candy high into the air.

"I think you're going to miss."

Remus caught the sweet in his mouth and crunched smugly. "Have another try."

Sirius rolled his eyes and took another sweet from his pocket, which he tossed over his shoulder. It fell past his hand and landed in the mud with an unceremonious _plop_. Sirius cursed.

"Want another, Lily?" Remus offered.

"Thanks."

"But in all seriousness," he continued, still crunching on his candy, "we've got Dearborn, and then we've got the rest of us. And we're all bollocks at dueling."

"Excuse me, Moony, but I disagree."

"I think Moody's going to have us hiding in a load of bushes."

"Reconnaissance?" Sirius asked, now attempting - and failing - to catch a piece of candy in his mouth as Remus had. "Sure, that's part of the job. Plus we have Lily."

"Why on Earth," I said, "would he send the whole lot of you in after me?"

Sirius shrugged. "To cover you, obviously."

"Right, so Marlene can make a load of noise about dueling foot work and get us all noticed - "

"Well, actually, she's not _that_ bad," Remus interjected. "I reckon Caradoc would know how to use her. At least for something."

"I'm more curious about what Frank's going to do with Pete," Sirius said. "Now that's a legitimate question. And putting Alice and Frank together - I don't get it."

I spit the hard center of my candy into a puddle, causing a small eruption of colorful sparks. "Why not?"

"Because Alice is good enough to take a group by herself. Frank and Caradoc are a better team. They always go into the field together. By separating them, you waste them both. And you waste Alice, because she's just going to end up letting Frank lead."

"No she won't," I scoffed. "She'll take half her group and Frank will take the rest, I'm sure of it. Moody wanted self-commanding groups, right? So you make one that can split itself in half. I bet Alice and Hestia will stay in the rear with Peter and cover James and Frank. Like in our group, Moody probably wants one of you with me and one of you with Caradoc."

Sirius grinned. "You haven't even had your briefing yet."

"So? You two are the ones who started nattering like a pair of girls over what we're going to do."

"Here, Lily, have another sweet."

At this I laughed. "Oh, shut up - " Suddenly I froze. "Shh," I hissed. "I heard something."

Sirius and Remus each raised an eyebrow.

"Wands," I said softly. Heart racing, I began scanning the near-empty alley for signs of motion, but there were none. A newspaper vendor outside a cafe was snoring loudly at his kiosk.

"Shops are all open at this hour, right?" I breathed. Sirius nodded.

"What do you think you heard?" Remus whispered.

"A crack - like something hitting something else - "

"Lily," Sirius said quietly. "Look there."

With bated breath, I peered in the direction he was pointing. A small black object was skittering towards us, through the puddle I'd spit in a moment earlier, and suddenly Sirius began laughing. Horrified, I jammed my elbow into his ribs - "Shut up, for fuck's sake - " but then there came a bang and a puff of multicolored smoke, and I saw what he was laughing about: The object had skittered right over the candy pit I had left in the street, and now it was hissing with orange, green, and magenta sparks. The object crackled a moment longer before bursting briefly into purple flames and keeling over, smoking, into the puddle.

"You planted a land mine," Sirius whispered gleefully. "That's hilarious - "

But I did not care what else he had to say; I grabbed Remus and Sirius both by their sleeves and Disapparated on the spot. In a muddy forest clearing I stripped off my clothing - as Remus and Sirius watched in fascination and horror - and with a flick of my wand, burned them to a cinder.

"Now you two," I said forcefully, yanking on a freshly conjured pair of jeans. "Quickly! Do it!"

They exchanged glances, but in a moment they had both divested themselves of their shirts and trousers and had likewise burned them to a charred crater on the forest floor.

"So we were being tracked," Remus said, shivering as he conjured up a fresh set of clothes. "That's a whole new level of mental. I've never seen that happen in Diagon Alley."

"You think they were bugging our clothes too," Sirius added. It was a statement.

"How should I know they weren't?"

"Yeah. I agree."

"Right then," I said shakily. "Back to Headquarters, shall we?"

x.x.x.x.x.x

Three hours later found James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Alice, Frank, and me sitting around a table at the Leaky Cauldron with a heaping platter of sandwiches and a few bottles of firewhiskey. Dazed and intoxicated, I watched my table mates in silence. The amber light of the pub smudged the shadows out of their faces and I felt as if my eyes couldn't grip the shapes or colors of them; Alice and Frank talking animatedly with Peter, James and Sirius rowdy with life beside me, their voices running together behind the protection of a sound-scrambling charm. All the pub was abuzz as we were.

"When I bag my first Death Eater," Sirius was saying loudly, "I'm going to drag him off to Azkaban by his hair, Tomahawk style!"

"And scalp him too, right?" James smirked. "I picked up a little _Sectumsempra -"_ at this I shuddered - "that'll help with that."

"Wasn't the Tomahawk a weapon?" Remus asked, the voice of incongruity. "I mean, while we're talking about mythical tribes and all."

Sirius waved off the question. "Dunno. Anyway, I think we can each bag one by the end of the week. What say you, Prongs?"

"Definitely."

"No bloody way," Frank interjected. "It'll take you at least a month."

"What, to make a capture? You caught your first one after five days."

"Yeah, because I was out with Kingsley."

"This man is too modest," Sirius shouted, raising his shot glass. "A drink to Frank, the greatest Auror in the department!"

"And a drink," Alice chimed in, "to the initiation of Sirius, James, Peter, Remus, and Lily to the ranks of people who get killed. But who are brilliant anyway."

"Hear, hear!" We clinked glasses and all of us - with the exception of Peter, who sipped hesitantly at his whiskey - knocked back our shots. The alcohol burned as it slipped down my throat, a slow fire. My head was still throbbing with afterimages of our briefing in Moody's office: Maps of the Ministry of Magic, tiny spheres of light hovering over dozens of entry points. Lists of suspected Death Eaters, maps showing all of their suspected hideouts. Piles of magical protective gear smelling rankly in the corner of the room. And the cold stone beneath my knees as I fell before the glowing basin, my Patronus cantering within the chamber. My reflection, breathing heavily in the rippling silver. The memory of everything James had told me about his mission - details of my own flat, my street address, my childhood and family - details of Sirius's, Remus's, Marlene's, and Caradoc's instructions, swimming shapelessly in quicksilver and smoke.

"And one last toast," Sirius was saying, "to Lily!"

"To Lily!"

"Who will never get caught!"

"Who's so pretty and innocent-looking," James added, gazing at me over his raised glass, "that she could get away with anything."

Our glasses touched. Dimly I hoped that the alcohol would wipe my memory of this as well.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**A/N: **Hi guys. Again, sorry about the wait. A lot has happened since the last chapter. I moved to a new apartment - twice_, _as in I moved once in August and again about three weeks ago - and I am now officially starting my Ph.D. I've also recently been traveling in Central America, which was bloody amazing. I guess it goes without saying that I've been extremely busy. At any rate, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. Reviews are appreciated, if you are so inclined to leave them. :)

Cheers,

- Jenna

**P.S. **To the anonymous reviewer who caught the Team One/Team Two blooper in this chapter - you were absolutely right (and I totally wouldn't have noticed it on my own). It's fixed now; thanks for pointing that out!


	13. Sons and Daughters

**Author's note: **Sorry about the ridiculous wait, guys. This chapter had me really stumped for a while. Like, it was a problem I just flat-out couldn't solve. (Forever.) I also hit a couple of real-life snags these past few months, which put a damper on my writing. Fortunately, my little brother - who has his own creative writing project right now - was here this weekend to help me bounce some ideas around and get me back on track. Thank him for _Inertia's _longest chapter yet. Enjoy! :)

**- Chapter 12: Sons and Daughters - **

"Fuck. Bloody fucking buggering fuck."

It was 5AM and my head was pounding. James stood beside me in the kitchen of my flat, curtains pulled open to reveal the faint gray light that was just beginning to seep over the roofs of London. I was wringing my hands, pacing between the refrigerator and sink as a tea kettle whistled on the stove; James was watching me with a raised eyebrow.

"All right, Lily?" he asked. His voice seemed to amplify the throbbing quiet in the kitchen. Somewhere in the street below, the first morning truck lurched to a halt.

"I'm not ready."

"Yeah. I agree."

"Do you have a Pensieve ready for me?"

"A flask, actually."

"I just realized how redundant it would be for me to use it. Because I'm going to the Chamber of Memories first."

James nodded, sipping his coffee.

"You're the one who's going to need it. I think. In case you run into a Legilimens."

"I think I'm going to leave a thing or two behind before I run screaming onto the field, yeah."

"Just - remember. If you extract the memory normally, it's just a copy. And if - "

" - And if I want to leave it behind, it's an extraction with a modified Memory Charm. I know, Lily."

"Right."

James smiled thinly. "We'll both be fine."

"I can't believe I drank that much fire whiskey last night. Why did I drink that much fire whiskey? I can't believe I drank all that _fucking _fire whiskey."

Frowning, James reached over and brushed some hair out of my face. His lips were tight; nevertheless, he ran his hands lightly down my arms and kissed me on the forehead. "Everybody has bad ideas once in a while. Can you push through it?"

"I don't know." My head was spinning. "That sobering charm. That was really horrible."

James kissed me again. "Yeah. It has an edge. I'm sorry."

"I can't do it, James."

There was a long pause. Then the sound of ignition in another motor vehicle. A muscle in James's jaw twitched as he propped my chin on his thumb and lifted it. "You have to," he said flatly. "And you will."

Suddenly my knees felt like jelly, and something warm began creeping up my cheeks. My stomach twisted hotly and I fought back the urge to grip the countertop. "Right. Because you know this, obviously."

"Yeah. Because you're my girlfriend." He cupped my cheek in his hand, not meeting my eyes. I had never seen his face look so white.

"Right."

The muscle in his jaw twitched again, and the faint effort of a smile flickered across his lips as he studied me, seeming to memorize the shape of my face. Then his eyes softened, and he ran his fingers through my hair with a trembling hand. He breathed deeply. "So," he said a moment later, his voice pleasant and level, "tell me what you're going to do. Again."

Now I laughed, fighting the hysteria building in the pit of my stomach. "Again?"

"Yeah."

"Sure. Whatever." I giggled nervously and found that giggling made my diaphragm feel looser. "I'm going to Headquarters. Then I'm going to review the records. And then I'm going to go and get lost delivering a sandwich to the suspected party. Or something. I don't know." I gave another girlish laugh, leaning giddily against James. "Then I'm going to hitch up my skirt a bit and have a pleasant chat. And then I'm going to hope to God and Merlin that I understand how to read him."

James pressed his lips against my forehead. "Mm. You're forgetting my favorite part."

"And then I'm going to titter some more and walk out of there with whatever documents I can steal."

"And if he gets pushy?"

"And if he gets pushy, I'm going to knock his block off."

"And possibly kill him."

"Hah." I felt faint. "I think I'm supposed to take a slightly more subtle approach than that."

"Don't be too subtle. Because I'll probably come storming in and blow your cover anyway."

"Please don't do that."

"I probably will."

"You'll be in the field."

"Yeah. I know."

"Are you ready?"

At this James smiled levelly, and I knew the answer. He was playing absently with my hair. "I'm ready for everything. Bring me the cliff and I'll jump."

"Aren't you terrified, though?"

"Like hell I'm not." Now he grinned. "But I'm indestructible. We know this."

Biting my lip, I looked up at him. The sun was rising now; the glow of it was glinting orange at the rims of his glasses, putting almost a faint blush in his cheeks, and in that moment I felt as if something had struck the wind out of me and set the kitchen spinning - careening, even - into outer space. Where our planet hung in the balance of something many miles, eons, lifetimes, and dimensions larger than us. Where the lack of blood in James's cheeks was but a tiny spot of stillness in an ocean of violent and insistent motion. Where the whole depth and breadth of our existence was but a narcissistic little scuff mark on the forehead of Earth.

A faraway sound told me I was laughing nervously again, shivering as James held me, kissing my cheeks and eyelids as my vision went hot and blurry.

"Shh, shh. Lily." He was whispering now. "I'll see you in a few. Don't think about me. Just go in there and get it done. Shh. It's okay."

The vastness collapsed on me. The street was humming with early traffic now, the orange glint trembling with the motion of James's breathing. "Hey," he said softly. He kissed my forehead, and then kissed it again. He was digging in his pocket. "Hey."

"Yeah. I'm fine. It's okay."

And suddenly something soft and shimmery fell around us, and the orange glint gathered an iridescent sheen. James gave the soft shimmery something a tug and I stumbled close to him again, falling against his chest as he wrapped both arms tightly around me. His heart fluttered shallowly beneath his ribs as he kissed me, this time full on the mouth, and my head swam with the heat of it. Dizzily I brushed my fingers down the thing that shrouded us and realized it was James's Invisibility Cloak.

"Remember this?" His breath was hot in my ear as his lips moved from my jaw to my neck to my earlobe, his fingers running down my spine and through my hair. My breath hitched in my throat.

"We almost got caught. Twice."

"And a third time. Except we didn't get caught."

"Yeah. I remember."

James gathered the cloak in his fist now and pulled it off of us, his other arm still wrapped firmly around my waist. "Take it with you."

"Aren't you going to need it?"

"Don't argue with me. Just take it. Please."

"James - "

"I love you. It's the right thing to do. It's not like I need it anyway."

"No," I said, my voice rising in panic, "you do need it. I have - I can't use it for what I'm going to do. Keep it. Use it. Lend it to me later."

"I know what I'm doing," James said roughly.

"No you don't."

"Yes I do."

"This is the first time you're going out with the Aurors._ Ever."_

"I can duel."

"James. Shut up. I'm not kidding."

He stepped back, his lips in a line, and I saw something raw and reckless in his eyes.

"You're being overconfident," I said sharply. "Stop it. You always do this. Nothing good is going to come of it, you know this - "

"What, nothing good is going to come of me giving you the Cloak so you can get in and get out without being seen? Nothing good is going to come of me trying to _protect you?"_

"That's not what this is about," I snapped. "This isn't about the Cloak. This is about you, right now. You're in a reckless place, I know you, you're like this before you do something completely idiotic, just - whatever it is, stop and think - "

"Lily, I'm getting fucking deployed, what the hell do you want, of course this is going to be reckless and dangerous - "

"No. It's just - the look in your eye. I know it. Mentally. You're mentally reckless today. _Stop."_

_"I'm _not reckless. _You're_ just panicking."

_"James!"_

"What, Lily?" James yelled, whipping the Cloak against the counter. The color was rising in his cheeks now; the whiteness was gone. "Seriously, what!"

"I know you want to protect me," I said hoarsely; I was shaking. "I know. But just - James, _please - _you're going to be out with Frank for _three full days - _seriously - I am going to be sitting on a desk giggling at some arsehole pretending I'm the biggest fucking twat in the universe for _thirty minutes. _I'm sure they've got the place bugged too, I can't put the bloody Cloak on if twenty people are watching me through Zonko's spy eyeballs or whatever they use over there, _please, _just take the Cloak with you. It'll give you a tactical advantage. Which you would realize if you were thinking clearly, but you're _not."_

A look of hurt flickered across his face, but it was quickly replaced with anger. "All right, fine," James said, straightening up. "Thanks. After all these years, I'm glad you still think I'm a fucking dunce you have to keep on a leash. But either way, Lily, I'm leaving the Cloak with you, because you are _not _going to be gone for thirty minutes. You're going to be gone for a couple of _days,_ just like me. So take the Cloak or leave it. I'm going now."

"What? I don't think you're a - "

"Oh, it's fine," James said loudly, striding towards the door. "I'm a reckless fool. You're right. I'd jump on a Killing Curse for you. I love you, Lily, I'll see you in a couple of days."

The door slammed so hard that the windows shook; then James was gone. For a moment I stood there in shock.

_He's actually left for a three-day long stalk and combat mission angry with me, _I thought. _Fuck all. I can't believe he's _actually_ done it. _

Eyes blurring with tears, I snatched up the Cloak and threw it violently down the hall before stalking into the bedroom and opening the window. Noah the Owl was watching me with great intensity, his eyes amber and bright and wide. I opened his cage and held out my hand. Noah hopped onto my fist, curling his talons around my index finger.

"Thanks for not cutting me," I said, wiping my tears roughly on my sleeve. "Have I ever mentioned that I used to hate James? Because every once in a while I still do. Seriously. I bloody hate that guy."

Noah blinked.

"By which I mean I definitely don't. But all the same. Fuck him kindly."

Noah nipped at my free hand with his beak. My nerves shuddered.

"I mean really. Who _does_ that?"

Noah gave a terse chirp and launched himself out the window. The morning was bright in the street now, the sun a streak of molten gold reflected in windowpanes and windshields. The sky was blue and clear, a gentle hue; faint shadows moved on the wall behind me, and the emptiness of the room without James in it struck me like a blow to my stomach. I laid my head against the windowsill and wept. Having a row over who would take the Invisibility Cloak. Stupid. Like children. _I _was like a child.

Suddenly a shout and a screech of tires went up in the street. Rubbing my eyes dry, I peered over the sill. There was a man with a bicycle in the middle of the intersection, shouting obscenities at a motorist who appeared to have fishtailed off to the curb; there were tire tracks on the asphalt. The motorist threw the car door open and stepped out into the street, slamming the door with a fantastic _crack. _The cyclist - a middle aged-looking man in a helmet and spandex riding shorts - was gesticulating violently.

"You bloody watch where you're going, arsehole! I pay just as many taxes as you do, you fuck head, I expect to be able to use these bloody roads without fear of being motored down by the likes of an office drone like you, you bloody fucking - "

"I'm just trying to get to my job!" the motorist bellowed, pounding his fist on the hood of his car. "And you come out of nowhere, no hand signals, no reflectors, as if I haven't got two bloody blind spots at the boot of my car, you fucking irresponsible prick - "

"YOU ALMOST DESTROYED MY ONE-THOUSAND POUND BICYCLE! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE! JUST _LOOK!"_

"I SWERVED ONTO THE BLOODY CURB AND KNOCKED MY FUCKING HUBCAPS OFF AVOIDING YOUR FUCKING ARSE, AND NOW I'M GOING TO BE FIRED FOR BEING LATE!"

"I DON'T _CARE_ ABOUT YOUR BLOODY FUCKING HUBCAPS OR YOUR BLOODY FUCKING JOB!"

The two men looked as though they might come to blows at any moment. I turned away, rubbing my forehead. Muggles. My people. As petty and supremacist and irrational as my magical brethren. Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, wives, husbands. Coffee or tea in the morning, loved ones to feed. Collectively capable of being as unthinking and evil as the Death Eaters. The dumb, panicked mob. Here they were. Two members. Each probably willing to kill or die for a select handful of their own people.

"Muggle," I said aloud. Suddenly I laughed. _How hilarious is it that this, of all things, is what we call them? _

I rose, threw on my cloak, and Disapparated.

x.x.x.x.x.x

The record room was empty when I arrived, silent and parched down to the dust gathering at the corners of the floor. Wand out, pacing between the shelves of flasks, I rehearsed the situation again and again in my head: I would be in an office. I would smile and giggle at its occupant. I would drop napkins and chips and pretend to trip on pieces of furniture. I would be vacantly pretty and feign ignorance about everything.

_Easy enough, right? _I thought, gathering armfuls of flasks from Alice's shelf and stumbling with them toward the Pensieve mounted in the center of the room. One of them slipped over the crook of my elbow and bounced as it hit the floor; clumsily, I scuttled after it, trying not to drop the other flasks balanced precariously against my chest.

Having retrieved the stray flask and arrived at the Pensieve, I arranged the records in chronological order along the edge of the pedestal. Then, with exaggerated deliberation, I pulled a silver strand from my forehead and knelt to examine it.

_"Alice has already done the grunt work for you," Moody was saying, tapping a finger at a cluster of points on an iridescent map shimmering silently before us. The map cast an eerie glow on the instruments in Moody's office, blue flecks of light flicking, insect-like, over their black and chrome surfaces. "We think the suspect has been bribed for a fancy sum. He's a minor number to the Death Eaters, but the problem is that he's right here in the bottom offices of the Department of Law Enforcement. Your job is to find out what he plans to do. You buy a person off, they might just take the money and sit quietly until you give them more - but my guess is that the Death Eaters are going to strong-arm this guy into doing some dirty work for them. He's the first chip in the iceberg, you understand? He makes a crack in Law Enforcement, gets one of his new bosses in - that means the Ministry rots faster from the inside."_

_"Right."_

_"I want you to find out how weak he is and how much information he's passing along to the Death Eaters. Find out who he's talking to and what his orders are. Alice has already discovered that he has a soft spot for pretty young girls and orders fish and chips from a Muggle chip shop down the street. Bloody weird, this one. - Anyway, do what you have to do."_

I watched myself a moment longer as I set my jaw and nodded impassively; then I stood, gathered the silvery liquid on the tip of my wand, and placed it against my forehead.

_Good. I haven't missed anything. _

With that, I emptied the first of Alice's flasks into the Pensieve and knelt again.

_"Oh, so you're new here," Alice said pleasantly. "So nice to meet you, welcome to the the Department of Magical Law Enforcement - not that I work here, of course," she added with a giggle. "I'm a few offices down. Auror Department, actually. I'm brand new to the business, so it's comforting to know there are other newcomers like me."_

_The man - dirty blond, with a round face and a goatee - looked to be about twenty-eight. He was going soft around the waist and had a shifty look in his eye, though he was smiling slightly, just at the corner of his mouth. Alice had perched herself somewhat indiscreetly on the corner of his desk, sitting atop a low stack of recently-printed documents such that the parchments shifted every time she moved; the man was watching her with obvious intent, and clearly Alice understood this. Smiling, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and crossed her legs. "They put us through all this training," she said with a confessional little twirl of her finger through her hair, "but I don't think I'm ready for the big jobs yet, you know what I mean? I mean, it's all I can do to keep all my Concealment Charms straight when I'm in the field - I'm pretty good with books, but that's not very helpful when you're under fire."_

_"Can't imagine that it is," the man replied, still smiling slightly. "I'm hoping to stay out of the line of fire myself. People say I have no ambition, but in a time like this, who wants to climb the ranks of law enforcement, of all things?"_

_"Exactly!" Alice exclaimed. "But you have to admit, they give you a nice paycheck for this sort of work. That's worth something. Especially for a young witch like me - not married, and all."_

_The man shrugged. "It's all right. Nothing compared to the piles of gold some people have, though. I'm not sitting at this desk for the paycheck."_

_"Oh, but you mentioned you'd transferred from a clerkship lower down? What was it that you were doing, again - payroll filing?"_

_The man scratched his ear. "Yeah, that was it. I thought I'd do something a bit more exciting. The pay is about the same between the two jobs, really. But the difference here is that the work is just more - interesting. Rather than file payroll records, I'm filing crime reports. Much more entertaining reading, if you ask me."_

_"Oh, I'm sure! I just love the ones that come in describing things like the illegal levitation of cats out of trees when the Muggle owners aren't looking. Sometimes I think we must just get bored. I mean, crikey!"_

_The man gave a loud and boorish laugh. "Absolutely! You see what I'm talking about, don't you? Bloody hilarious, the things people in this department get up to when they've got nothing else to do. Sometimes I think I'd like to stir up some trouble just to see what you all will do if you caught me walking down the street without pants."_

_"I'd swat you on the bum, that's what I'd do," Alice giggled. "But really, it gets dull down here pretty quickly, I've known a few filing clerks who transferred out because they got tired of reading about levitating cats. You're sure you don't want to work your way up the ladder a bit? You get paid more once you graduate from filing clerk to filing manager - and I hear the job gets more entertaining."_

_The man quirked an eyebrow. "So I've heard. We'll see if they want me in that spot, though." He winked. "I'm good at making friends. In the meantime, I've got some personal investments keeping me comfortable. Really I'm just about the community service."_

_"Oh, you're adorable," Alice gushed. "Too much for me. Well, Mr. Halpern, it was a pleasure chatting. Believe it or not, I do have work to get back to."_

_"Call me Mark. I don't stand on formalities."_

_"Mark, then. My pleasure." Alice smiled brightly and gave her hair another little toss before sliding off the desk. "I'm sure I'll be seeing more of you."_

_"Please do," Halpern replied, still watching Alice as she made for the entrance of Halpern's cubicle; his eyes didn't leave her until, with a swish of her hips and a small glance over her shoulder, she disappeared from view. _

_Alice strode a few paces down the hall before casually lifting her foot and kicking the filing room door open. With a few dismissive flicks of her fingers she unwrapped a piece of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum and popped it in her mouth. _

_"Wow. Fucking idiot," she mused, smacking her lips around a massive pink bubble. She let it bounce idly for a moment; then she sucked and drew the gum back into her mouth, chewing absently as she strode up to the next door and kicked this one open too. Now standing in a bare and sparsely lit hallway, she lifted her wand and glanced around. Pausing for a moment, she pressed her ear against a crack in the wall, appearing to listen; then, apparently satisfied, she tapped her wand against the crack and vanished into it. _

_A moment later she materialized in a dank, bare-brick corridor, lit by dim glowing orbs hanging perhaps every thirty feet or so along the wall. Now Alice looked up at the ceiling - incidentally, the place where I imagined I would be floating, had I been with her - and held the tip of her wand against her forehead. _"Recordus Fidelus," _she said loudly, her eyes seemingly fixed on mine. "I'm layering this one in the event that someone tampers with the memory. I think we've learned something pretty important, namely that new boy Mark Halpern is up to something. One of our friends at Gringotts noticed an odd and anonymous transaction with his name on it the other day, so I decided to check him out. There are only a few families we know of with enough gold to go 'round inflating people's Gringotts vaults willy-nilly with huge piles of pirate treasure or whatever it is they're hoarding these days. I think we've got a lead, so if you're watching this, then that probably means you're the one who'll be getting cozy with this bloke next. Because you have to admit - transferring from payroll filing to petty misdemeanor filing because reading misdemeanor reports is more fun sounds like a rather painfully obvious crock. _

_"So here's my advice: Make sure you're pretty and female. I had a little Zonko's Love Sensor in my pocket that was practically melting my knickers in excitement. Mr. Halpern strikes me as an average, if reasonably experienced, liar - but if you couldn't already tell, he's bollocks at multitasking. Hitch up your skirt. Strangle his brain. Have yourself a little warm-up for your real mission. Over and out."_

I leaned back from the Pensieve, processing this. What kind of bloody idiot would knowingly talk to an Auror like that? Had he actually_ fallen _for Alice's giggling?

Stretching my legs out in front of me, I slumped back against the shelf behind me. I twiddled my thumbs a few times, eyeing the row of flasks lined up along the edge of the Pensieve.

To my disappointment, a glance through the rest of Alice's memories only confirmed what Moody had told me - that Halpern ordered fish and chips from the same Muggle shop every Friday at eleven o'clock, and that usually the delivery person was a pimply teenage boy who thought he was delivering lunch to a medical records center and left the food with one of the janitorial staff. Cracking my knuckles, I began pacing about the record room again.

_I can't bloody well clock one of our janitors over the head, make Polyjuice out of it, and steal their clothes, _I thought, gnawing the inside of my cheek. Even if I did manage to get a hold of all the ingredients I would need to make a batch of Polyjuice Potion today, the I would not be finished brewing until tomorrow afternoon. What was more, today was Friday; if I didn't make a move within the next few hours, I would have to wait another week.

_What if I…_

I stopped pacing and leaned over the Pensieve again, where the last of Alice's memories rippled placidly against the edges of the stone basin. My reflection frowned up at me, pale and half-hidden behind strands of dark red hair falling loose from my ponytail. Ponderously, I blew a puff of air onto the silver liquid, which responded with an obliging ripple. For a moment I thought I saw a hint of Petunia in my cheekbones.

_You and I have always had the same chin and hairline, _I thought dryly, tapping my forehead with my wand and watching my hair turn strawberry-blonde.

x.x.x.x.x.x

One stop in the Chamber of Memories and twenty minutes later, I tiptoed into the loo, doing my best to look bright-eyed and slightly unsure of myself. Freckled, blonde, and blue-eyed with a slightly shorter nose than I had begun with, I stepped in front of the mirror to adjust my clothing. I had somewhat clumsily Transfigured my jeans and t-shirt into a skirt and one of the deep maroon cloaks that the young Hogwarts volunteers wore when they came to the Ministry for a weekend or summer of low-level "administrative assistance" work - the sort of work that even the clerks and janitors didn't want to be bothered with, such as fetching tea and arranging piles of memos in chronological order for filing.

"Are you sure you know where you are, poppet?" came a voice. Whirling, I saw that the voice belonged to Alice. She was looking at me suspiciously, biting the corner of her lip. A bolt of adrenaline surged into my veins.

"Um, no," I replied. To my horror, my voice was completely unchanged. I made a small choking noise.

Alice grinned. I burst into a fit of wholly schoolgirlish giggles.

"You had me fooled for a second there," Alice confessed.

"Yeah, I thought you might Stun me and drag me away."

"Well, I was confused. There was no way you could have gotten onto this particular floor without having your Patronus cleared, so a part of me thought you must be one of us. It's just - you do _such_ a good job of looking out of place, I can't believe it." Alice's grin widened. "So you're a Hogwarts volunteer and you're going to run teacups around the Ministry all day."

"That's the idea."

"Which House?"

"Oh, I don't know. Hufflepuff, probably."

Alice nodded. "Good choice."

"Not too obvious?"

"Well, there are only four," Alice shrugged. "I stand by Hufflepuff."

"Great."

"So what's your name?"

"Erm," I said. "I was thinking something like…Anna. Anastasia? And some totally mismatched surname. Um - right. Turnpike. _Anastasia_ Turnpike."

Now Alice burst out laughing. "Anastasia Turnpike. I love it. I'm not even going to ask what Anastasia Turnpike is going to get up to today. You need to surprise me with that one over a couple of fire whiskeys. If talking about it won't get you killed, anyway."

"What am I going to do about my voice, though?"

"Um," Alice said, pursing her lips. She tilted her head and regarded me carefully. "Maybe - try _Vox Vivace?"_

"That sounds dangerous. Like it'll turn me into a tittering hamster on helium."

Alice pulled out her wand. "Trial run, while we're in the safety of the loo?"

I watched her wand uncertainly. "Um. Sure?"

_"Vox Vivace," _Alice said, twirling her wand a bit in the direction of my neck. Instantly I felt my throat tighten, almost as if I were going to laugh. I coughed.

"Hello?" I choked, tugging at my collar. My voice came out bubbly and high, a bit squeaky, even - but utterly foreign. I cleared my throat. "Alice - what the hell have you done - "

"No, Lily, that's amazing," she cut in gleefully. "You sound like such a nattering, empty-headed tart. It's fantastic."

"I'm supposed to be a respectable and innocent little school girl!"

"Trust me. This will get you further. Talk like that and everyone will think you're too stupid to do any harm."

I cleared my throat again, this time concentrating on controlling my voice. I gave an experimental little hum. "Actually, this sounds pretty smooth, if I work at it."

"Even better." Alice grinned wickedly. "I have to admit, Anastasia Turnpike, you're pretty cute."

_"Do re mi fa sol," _I replied, grinning back, _"la ti do."_

"Oh, you're killing me," Alice exclaimed, clapping her hands. "Remember to swish your skirt! Or whatever it is you're going to do."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Come eight-thirty that morning, I was skulking in the same hallway Alice had recorded her memory of Halpern in, quill and parchment in hand; I had stolen an old Hogwarts Volunteer Notification letter from the Order's refurbished mail room while Hestia was in the lavatory, and now, tongue between my teeth, I was forging a notification stating that Anastasia Turnpike, sixteen-and-a-half years old and of Hufflepuff House, would be arriving in Magical Law Enforcement at promptly nine o'clock. What was more, Anastasia was looking forward to finding out how things worked "on the ground", because she hoped to graduate next year with a good set of practical skills and know-how that would help her get her foot in the door of the Ministry of Magic.

Finishing the notification with a flourish and what I thought was quite an excellent forgery of the Hogwarts seal, I paused for a moment and wondered if perhaps my comments about Anastasia's ambitions weren't a bit too Slytherin-like for a nice Hufflepuff girl. Then, thinking better of this, I stowed the quill deep within my pockets, dropped the notification into the feather-cluttered mail slot that the low-level Ministry Owls used, refreshed my disguise, and waited.

x.x.x.x.x.x

When the clock struck nine o'clock, I knocked at the front door of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's Petty Misdemeanor Filing Room. A confused-looking wizard in a janitor's cap opened it, his eyes flicking from my face to my toes and back up again, where they rested on the Hogwarts badge on my left breast.

"Hullo," I chirped. "Anastasia Turnpike - volunteer from Hogwarts?"

The wizard blinked once, his scruffy face scrunching a bit in a frown. "You lot usually come here by Floo. Can't remember the last time I heard anyone but Aurors knocking on this door."

"Oh," I blushed, tugging at my strawberry blonde hair. "Erm. Well, I did Floo here from Hogwarts - I must've gotten the fireplaces mixed up, though, because I landed straight in the middle of the Auror Department! They were ever so confused, I was _so_ embarrassed - "

"Oh, so they sent you down here," the wizard said, comprehension dawning on his face. "Makes more sense, that. Well, follow me, I'll find you something to do."

I fell into step behind him, watching his sauntering gait. He was shuffling a bit, slightly hunched and possibly senile, and I guessed that he was about sixty. I sucked my lower lip between my teeth, thinking. No Hogwarts teenager would have been able to Floo into the Auror Department without being cleared ahead of time - this much I knew from having been there a few times with Alice - but it was clear that this man - and perhaps other members of the janitorial staff? - did not know this.

"Erm, excuse me, sir," I said hesitantly, speaking to his back, "could you not repeat my mistake with the fireplaces to anyone else? I'm just _so _embarrassed, I wouldn't want them to think badly of me - "

"Call me Alfonso," the man interrupted loudly.

"Er, yes, Alfonso. Could you not - "

"Bah, I can't even remember my wife's name, and you're worried about me spreading rumors about _you!" _Alfonso roared, seeming thoroughly pleased with himself. "What's your name, again?"

"Anastasia Turnpike."

"Oh. Lovely name, that. Anya?"

"Anastasia."

"Oh, _Anastasia! _Are you Russian?"

"No, I'm quite British, actually. My parents just happened to like - "

"I have Russian ancestors. Deep magical roots dating back to the Czars! That's why these Death Eaters leave me alone. Pureblood _and _a descendent of the Russian Czars! That keeps them in line."

"Goodness, really?" I asked, having to concentrate to keep the squeal out of my voice. "You know, I've heard that Purebloods are having a much better time of it these days - "

"Blimey, you don't want to be anything but Pureblooded these days!" Alfonso said emphatically, gathering his mop and bucket. "But being a descendent of the Russian Czars helps."

I sighed inwardly. "Which Czar?"

"Oh, I don't remember. Nicholas or something like that. They were magical, all of them."

"Do you know who in this office is Pureblood?" I asked, cocking my head in what I hoped was a cute and disarming manner. "I mean, do you have a list? I'd like to know, so that I - "

"Hah! Absolutely! We never used to, come to think of it - or did we? - Never mind, my memory's going," Alfonso said, tapping his temple and giving me an amused look. Then he lowered his voice and leaned closer, so that his face was about a foot from mine. His breath smelled like stale pumpkin juice. "But we do now. One of the girls discovered it on the floor in someone's cubicle on this floor just last week. There was a huge kerfuffle about it."

"A kerfuffle?"

"Oh, yes. This girl, Nancy, she was angry! Towering rage like you've never seen," Alfonso said, as though he were recounting the crashing of an alien spaceship or some such incredible thing. "Such a sweet girl, Nancy. But she was angry! I'd never seen her like that before. This was just last Friday. But it was so strange, nobody outside this department knew about it. Information doesn't get out of these walls, like. Usually there's gossip between the clerks upstairs when someone down here picks a row like that, because these girls like to talk to each other," Alfonso added. "But when I went upstairs to make my rounds, there was nothing. Really something, isn't it?"

"Is Nancy Muggle-born?"

"Oh, I don't know," Alfonso replied. "That's none of my business. I didn't look at the list. I just heard her screaming about it. She said she was going to report whoever made it and have them tried for treason."

_So she's probably Muggle-born_, I thought. I shifted uneasily. "Who made the list, do you know? - I mean, perhaps someone ought to, you know, try to talk to them."

Alfonso waved his hand dismissively. "I don't know who made it," he said, shaking his head. "That's none of my business either. I just stay out of it. I mop the floor and make sure the new guy gets his fish and chips every Friday. He's always ordering those fish and chips, isn't that funny? Only one in this office who does that. Everyone else gets their supper upstairs, you know, where we have a whole corridor of food stands! We have House-Elves downstairs," Alfonso added conspiratorially. "They're cooking night and day to keep the Ministry fed. And they make fish and chips, if you want them."

"Really? That's brilliant."

"Yeah, these Ministry lot, they think of everything," Alfonso grinned, tapping his temple again. "Very smart people."

"Oh, I imagine they'd have to be! Well, Alfonso," I said, laying my hand on his hunched shoulder, "can I help you with anything today? Perhaps you'd like me to deliver the new person's fish and chips while you take a rest? - I mean, unless there's something else I should be doing - "

"You want to deliver the fish and chips?" Alfonso asked, his eyebrows rising curiously. "Well, I don't see why not. You know who to take them to?"

"Well, no, not yet," I lied. "I don't suppose you could tell me?"

"Mark," Alfonso said loudly. "Pick them up by the mail room and bring them to Mark Harper. He's right down the hall in the last cubicle to your left."

"Harper?"

"Something like that."

"All right. I'll find him."

Alfonso patted my arm. "Good girl. You're smart, I can tell. You're like my granddaughter. You'll fit right in here."

"Goodness, I'm not smart. I don't know anything about the world, it's all so confusing to me."

"Bah, you're smart. You're Russian! I know how these things work." Alfonso gave me a wink and turned to leave. "I've got to get to my cleaning."

"Oh, of course! Thank you, Alfonso!"

He waved his hand again and shuffled off, pushing the mop and bucket back out into the hallway. I slumped back against the wall for a moment, studying his retreating back.

_He is either exactly as senile as he seems, or he's a fantastic actor. _I reached into my pocket and ran my fingers along the length of my wand, weighing my options. Something about Alfonso's apparent senility made sense when I thought about the oddness of the fish and chips and the fact that nobody seemed to have tried to investigate it. My wand hand stilled for a moment. He reminded me of my own grandfather shortly before he'd died.

Alfonso's bucket screeched against the floor as he came to a halt and inserted the mop. I narrowed my eyes.

_Never mind. _

_"Obliviate,"_ I whispered, pointing my wand at Alfonso's back. He swayed as the spell hit him and clutched the mop for balance. Then, thinking he might collapse, I aimed my wand again and murmured, _"Ennervate."_

And just like that, Alfonso straightened up, wrung out his mop, and began cleaning the floor, whistling a raspy tune. I pocketed my wand and glanced around at the walls and ceiling. A dark spot in the far corner caught my eye.

Casually, so as not to attract Alfonso's attention again, I went up to the spot and peered closely at it. My heart thudded when I saw what it was: A magical eye, mounted right at the corner where wall met ceiling. And it was rolling about in its socket like a shaky compass needle, jerking to and fro as though trying and failing to focus on an erratically moving target. Smeared over the pupil was a thick streak of shiny black tar.

x.x.x.x.x.x

My mind was racing as I sat in the far stall of the women's lavatory. I had made my excuses to Alfonso, claiming an unsettled stomach, and had planted myself on the toilet seat so that I could have a moment to think. This floor had been under surveillance, just as the other Ministry offices had been when the Dark Lord had begun gathering followers. Alice had filled me in on all the disgruntled gossip that had swept through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in particular; she herself had complained about how stupid it was to have anyone other than an Auror watching the surveillance feed (not that the Aurors had had the time for such piddling idiocy, of course). I shut my eyes for a moment - who was it who was supposed to be watching the feed, if not someone in the Auror Department? Had she told me?

_Probably not, _I thought, massaging my temples. _Nobody outside the Ministry was supposed to know about that anyway. _

- _But Alfonso said that no gossip comes out of this floor anymore. That means someone down here is afraid to talk. Which means - _

_"Recordus Fidelus," _I muttered, keeping my voice low. A warm glow spread over my skull from the tip of my wand. "Someone has either bribed, intimidated, or killed whoever is in charge of watching the surveillance feed from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. My - er. My guess is that it was a bribe or an act of intimidation, since killing would be too obvious. Someone down here in petty misdemeanor filing has cut the feed and possibly intimidated the others into keeping silent. Obviously I have a suspect in mind. Will confirm as soon as possible."

Furtively, I slid my wand back into my pocket and flushed the toilet. Checking myself in the mirror, I saw that my disguise was still holding - I had perhaps another hour or two before the spells began to wear off. I blew out a breath and adjusted my ponytail. It was nearly eleven o'clock.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I took the still-hot container of fish and chips from the delivery boy, who had to enter the building through what appeared to be a very well-concealed side door that seemed to unlock for him and him only (and he _really _suspected nothing?). This door was, as Alfonso had said, near the mail slot into which I had slipped my forged notification several hours earlier, but there was certainly no way the boy could access it from the outside. Rather, when I went to answer the door, I noticed that the hall behind me momentarily shifted its appearance so as to look very much like a Muggle office building, with linoleum floors and an entrance hallway that opened onto a large grid of gray cubicles. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the unmistakable sounds of typewriters and telephones reached my ears.

"Delivery for Mr. Halpern of the Medical Records Services of St. Mary's Hospital," the boy mumbled, reaching into his rucksack for a clipboard as I accepted the steaming package. "Please sign here, will you, ma'am?"

Wordlessly, I took the ball-point pen the boy was offering and scribbled something unintelligible on the signature line.

"Thanks," lisped the boy, staring down at his trainers. "Have a good day."

"You too."

The typewriters and telephones fell silent as soon as I shut the door, and the hallway shifted immediately to its previous state - bare gray stone, lit by a few levitated torches, punctuated by the odd wooden door.

Furrowing my brow, I opened the plastic bag containing the delivery and sniffed. It was definitely fish and chips. Greasy and loaded with salt, obviously deep-fried. The fish smelled like it could be cod; nestled between the fried filets were two packets of tartar sauce. I sniffed again, trying to detect a trace of something - I didn't know what, really - something, anything unsavory or out of the ordinary.

Nothing. My mouth watered. And my stomach sank.

I glanced at the receipt in the bag. Halpern had pre-paid for his order with Muggle money - six pounds for the whole meal, prepared Piping Hot and Fresh from Paddy O'Connor's Fish and Chips shop, which, apparently, was located at number ten Piccadilly Street. I had never heard of the place.

_Sidewalk kiosk, maybe? _I thought, frowning. Piccadilly was popular with tourists, so perhaps Paddy O'Connor was just a very persistent street vendor?

Realizing just how little sense that made, I made my way back into the main office area. Alfonso was pushing a cart of old filing cabinets slowly across the room, still whistling raspily.

Halpern was twirling his wand in slow, lazy circles when I stepped into the cubicle, and he had propped his feet carelessly up on the desk. He noticed me immediately and set the piece of parchment he appeared to have been reading down, raising an eyebrow in greeting.

"Well, hello," he said, his eyes skimming over my Hogwarts badge. He smiled. "I don't believe we've met before. Looks like you've met Alfonso, though."

"Erm, I have," I replied, quirking what I hoped was a girlish smile. I set the package on his desk. "He told me he's the one who picks up your fish and chips every Friday?"

Halpern laughed. "That so? Well, yes, he does. Nobody else seems to want to do it, and I'm lazy. As you can see." He gestured to the shelves behind the desk, which were crammed with filing folders and generally in a state of considerable disarray.

"Oh, well, if filing is what you do down here, then I suppose a bit of mess here and there is normal," I said coyly. "Anastasia Turnpike. I'm just here for the day, really. It's so nice to meet you."

"Anastasia. Lovely name," Halpern nodded. "So you're coming from Hogwarts, correct?"

"Yes. I'm hoping to get an idea of, you know, of how things are done here." Without asking his permission, I perched myself on the edge of the desk just as Alice had done and crossed my legs, smiling brightly. "I had no idea that it was possible to order meals from, you know, Muggle establishments. I think that's really quite ingenious, actually. I mean, there's just so much more variety out there."

"Absolutely," Halpern said pleasantly. I felt my cheeks flush as his gaze flicked from my face to my toes and back up again, and I tried not to shudder. "So, which year are you in, Anastasia?"

"Sixth. Getting to that point where I've got to start thinking about careers," I said, twirling my hair shyly about my finger. "So, what's it like working here? My mum says it's so important to get a sense of the people, you know, so you can figure out what sort of - well - _dynamics_ there are at an office."

"She's perfectly right, Anastasia. The people here are just wonderful. Never worked with a nicer lot in my life." Halpern opened the box and proceeded to squeeze tartar sauce over the fish filets.

"I've heard you have to look out for gossip wherever you go."

"Oh, yeah, that's true," Halpern replied, popping a chip into his mouth. He savored it for a moment. I tried not to look as if I were waiting for the fish to erupt into some kind of incarnation of the Dark Lord. "We had a little bit of that going on here when I first arrived. Not very savory stuff, you know - some people in this office are a bit concerned about things they shouldn't be. I had to have a chat with one of them. But I think we all understand each other now. It's been quite pleasant being here since then." He smiled.

"What sort of things were they concerned about?" I asked in a small voice.

"Hm. Well, I wasn't going to tell you at first, but since you ask," Halpern said through a mouthful of fried fish, "they were all up in a tizzy about blood status. See, that sort of thing doesn't matter a whit to me."

I nodded fervently. "Right."

"Now, since you're obviously trying so hard to learn," Halpern said, lowering his voice, "I'll tell you something. I don't want you repeating it, all right? It'll make me look bad."

"No, of course I wouldn't. Say anything, I mean."

Halpern smiled. "Good." Now he leaned closer, enough that I had to suppress an involuntary shudder. "Nancy is one of the other clerks in this office. She's a very sweet girl and I love her to death. But there's something you have to know about Nancy and people like her. Those people don't like it when someone new comes in and the status quo changes. You know, because routines change up a bit. People get assigned to different jobs. It's all rather silly," Halpern sighed, "but that's how it is. She didn't like it when I suggested that our filing system was out of date. I think she took it personally."

"Can you show me the new filing system?"

Halpern's mouth twitched. "If you come back and work here next year, I'll show you." He gave me a little wink.

I tilted my head. Right over Halpern's shoulder was a shelf crammed with filing folders, all color-coded: On the left were a handful of brown folders, labeled "MB"; and on the right, taking up the rest of the shelf, were probably two hundred emerald green folders, labeled "PB". The parchments they held poked out at all number of odd angles, curling here, crumpled there. The shelf, for its part, bore a label that read, "Trials & Acquittals". I uncrossed and re-crossed my legs, giving my top foot a curious twirl. Suddenly I smiled.

"You know, Mr. Halpern, I think it's all right if you're just a tiny bit concerned about blood status down here. You can learn something about demographics by paying attention to that sort of thing, can't you? I mean, I hope I'm not being rude, but - " I paused and looked down at my lap, biting my lip - "I've heard there's been a rash of Pureblood misdemeanors recently? Or at least that seems to be the case, if you read _The Daily Prophet. _- Though, I mean, I could be wrong." Shyly, I looked up.

Halpern's chewing had slowed somewhat. He raised an eyebrow. "Odd, I didn't think the _Prophet _reported statistics like that," he mused after a moment, swiveling his chair around so that his head blocked my view of the shelf's label. "Either way, you're right, there has been a bit of a rash lately. I actually first noticed that and organized the records to show that. Nancy didn't like it. She actually thought I was accusing half-bloods and Muggle-borns of deserving it, or some hogwash like that." Now Halpern laughed, squeezing more tartar sauce over his fish. "As if I have any control over who's committing petty crimes! What a riot, that bird." He grinned strangely and popped another chip into his mouth. "She's bloody hilarious."

"Wow. That's a pretty ridiculous thing to think of a filing clerk - no offense."

Halpern laughed through a mouthful of potato. "I know, bloody right! Listen," he added, waggling a finger at me, "people will think you're strange no matter what you do. They think you're strange if you haven't got friends, but then they think you're strange if you've got friends, too. It just depends on whether or not they like your friends, see?"

"Does Nancy not like your friends?" I asked, hoping I sounded bewildered.

"Hates their guts. I've got a friend, he's a writer. And another who recently served an extended couple of terms on the jury to the Wizengamot. There's another, he's been down and out this year - I've been trying to help him out, maybe get him a part-time job here helping Alfonso with all that bloody mopping he has to do. All brilliant civil servants! And this bird thinks I'm gossiping to them about her or something mental like that. Wouldn't you figure!"

"Sounds like she's not very sociable."

"Not really, no."

"Could I meet her? Maybe, you know, to get an idea of what I'm up against?"

Halpern laughed and stretched out his arms. Neither bore the Dark Mark. "She's just down the hall."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Nancy Selwick was a middle-aged woman with graying hair and a matronly figure. She wore dark-rimmed spectacles and conservative robes, under which I could just make out the cuffs of a regular set of jeans and a button-down shirt. She smiled and pulled up a chair when I stepped into her cubicle, gesturing toward a jar of ginger snaps at the corner of her desk.

"Would you like one, dear?" she asked, peering warmly over the rims of her glasses. "My niece just loves baking them, but we can never finish them before they go stale."

"Oh, no thank you," I said, feeling a bit sheepish. "I'm just here for the day, you know, running some errands for Alfonso and such. I'm trying to - "

"Get a feel for what it might be like to work here? Yes, we get Hogwarts students all the time. It's a joy to see you young people here, though I'm not sure why you'd want to sit in a gray cubicle all day waving your wand at bits of parchment."

I laughed. "It can't be that bad, can it?"

"Well, it depends on the sort of work you want to do. If you like desk jobs, this is a pretty good place to be. What's your name, poppet?"

"Anastasia," I said automatically. "Sixth year, and all."

"That's lovely. Sixteen is such a wonderful year. How do you like it?"

"I'm a bit anxious about what I'm going to do once I graduate, honestly," I lied. "I thought maybe I'd like to apply for a spot here to start out, but I've just been speaking to Mr. Halpern - " suddenly Nancy's eyes hardened - "and he seems to have a different opinion on this job. I think maybe he doesn't quite like it?"

"I couldn't tell you whether he likes this job or not," she said tightly.

I chewed my lip, waiting for her to continue.

"I also don't think," she went on, seeming to struggle to keep her voice level, "that I…have any business talking about him with you." Now she looked up at me, her brown eyes boring straight into mine as if she meant to convey a different message; and to my shock, she gripped my hand, squeezing tightly.

"I saw your name on the notification memo, Anastasia," she said in a low voice, so low that I almost couldn't hear; straining a bit, I leaned closer so that she was whispering in my ear. "I know the name of every family who has ever had a run-in with the law, whether it be for petty traffic violations or murder in the first degree. I've been in this office for twenty years. I have access to every Wizarding family's criminal records - that's not on this floor, though, that's a bit further down - and whether or not a family has any criminal record at all doesn't matter. We keep them on file. We know the names of their children and grandchildren. And you, Anastasia Turnpike, do not exist."

My blood ran cold. "Pardon?"

"I'm telling you this because I know you're an impostor. Now, I don't know whose side you're on. But if you're with Halpern, I'm not sure I understand what you're doing here, because he already has this office under his thumb. And as arrogant and foolish as I find him and the Death Eaters to be, I have a hard time believing they would bother to infiltrate this place twice. Not because they're mindful of their resources. But because they get complacent. Easily."

My heart was pounding so hard now that I feared she would be able to hear it. Chills coursed up and down my spine, making me dizzy. I held my breath, not knowing what to say.

"I also noticed, while I was peeking over the top of my cubicle, that you went and looked at the magical eye that Halpern smeared with tar. You were fascinated by that, weren't you?"

"Yes," I breathed.

"I will not turn you in," Nancy whispered. "Halpern has threatened my family. He is trying to ingratiate himself to the Dark Lord, I am sure of it. So I will not say a word about you to anybody. As far as I'm concerned, you are Anastasia Turnpike, you are a Sixth Year at Hogwarts, and you helped me file some paperwork today. But I am begging you. Whoever you are, whomever you are working for - "

"Not the Death Eaters," I whispered quickly. "I'm not with them."

" - I was sure of that when I first saw you. But please. Bring the Aurors down on this floor. Bring them _crashing_ down. You know the Aurors personally, don't you? You have to, or you wouldn't be attempting such a stupid, foolish thing by coming here today."

I felt breathless. "I know a few of them."

"Good. This is the moment I've been praying for. Here." Nancy tapped one of her desk drawers with her wand and withdrew a crumpled piece of parchment, which she thrust into my hands. "I managed to make this duplicate of something he wrote not too long ago. He doesn't know I've done it, I'm sure. I don't know how well it copied. It carried some enchantments. You'll have to break into it."

Shakily, I nodded. I stuffed the parchment into my pocket.

"Incriminate him," Nancy whispered, squeezing my other hand so hard that it hurt. Her eyes were wild and desperate. "I am one hundred percent certain that he is bringing his people into the Ministry. Undercut him. Throw him in Azkaban. Kill him."

There was a long moment of silence. I set my jaw and patted Nancy's hand.

"And if you're just an excellent actor, or actress, or whatever you are," she added, smiling now, "then I'm dead anyway. But if I find out who you are before that happens, I will personally hunt you down and kill you before you can touch my children. This much I promise you."

"I'm not going to go after your children," I whispered. "Thanks, Nancy." I stood up and took a ginger snap from the cookie jar, exhaled once, and forced a smile. "Goodness, your niece does make the best ginger snaps," I said brightly. "Thanks so much, Nancy, it was wonderful meeting you."

She nodded stiffly and gestured sharply toward the hallway. _Get out of here while you still can, _she mouthed.

Gritting my teeth, I drew my wand and aimed it between her eyes. "I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm sure you get it."

Nancy's eyes widened, and her mouth opened into an 'o' of protest.

_"Obliviate."_

x.x.x.x.x.x

After stumbling back up to the record room at Headquarters and collapsing over the Pensieve for about an hour, I straightened my hair (which was red again) and Transfigured my clothes back to their original state (to my consternation, I didn't get the sizes quite right). Tired, hungry, and thoroughly overwhelmed, I shuffled off to the Leaky Cauldron for a sandwich and a glass of water.

"Are you sure you don't want a butterbeer with that?" the bartender - a lithe, grizzled wizard named Randy - asked, looking at me strangely. "You look like you've had a hell of a day, lady."

"Yeah, busy," I said dully. "Busy, busy, busy."

"Every time I've seen you come in here you've looked like hell."

I snorted. "Thanks."

"Let me get you a drink. It's on the house."

"Oh? Er. Thanks."

"My pleasure. What'll it be?"

"Anything but fire whiskey. I'm still hung over from a few too many shots last night, if you can believe that."

"Oh, I believe it." Randy set about mixing something I didn't care to see. "Well, since you say you're still hung over, I'll just mix you something fruity with a shot of Pepperup and skip the alcohol. Sound good?"

"Pepperup blends with fruit juices? Seriously? I don't believe you."

"No, you'll have to chase the Pepperup with the juice. I give this to my regulars when they're feeling rough. I promise it'll taste good."

"I'll take your word for it."

Randy wiped his hands on his apron and set a shot glass of Pepperup Potion before me, which he followed with a second shot glass full of something layered - deep orange on the bottom and blending into a rich, reddish amber at the top. As I threw back the potion, he garnished the second glass with a twist of some kind of orange fruit and a sprig of something green. Coughing, I reached for the shot. Randy nodded intently and pushed the glass forward.

The shot slipped down my throat with a sweet, soothing smoothness I had never tasted before, though I thought I recognized a mix of tropical fruits. He had added some sort of exotic pepper, too, which to my surprise blended beautifully with the aftertaste of the potion. Feeling my headache subside almost immediately, I sat up. "What did you garnish this with, Randy? Mango? Cilantro?"

Randy winked at me. "Just like magic."

"You were telling the truth. Thanks."

"You work in this business long enough, you learn what keeps people coming back," Randy said matter-of-factly. "What's your name, lass?"

"Lily," I replied, the sound of my name feeling strange in my ears.

"You were here last night, if I remember correctly. I recognized your whole lot there. James and Sirius used to come here underage and try to get me to serve them every bloody summer."

A wave of bitterness swept over me at the sound of James's name, wiping out all of the good the Pepperup Potion had done for my mood. My chest tightened at the memory of James's voice, sharp and wounded in a way I'd never heard before: _After all these years, I'm glad you still think I'm a fucking dunce you have to keep on a leash… I'm a reckless fool. You're right. I'd jump on a Killing Curse for you. I love you, Lily, I'll see you in a few days._

I breathed and swallowed the lump in my throat. "Yeah, they were like that, weren't they."

"It looked like the bloody Last Supper at your table yesterday."

"It wasn't, really," I said hollowly. _Though who knows, it might have been. _"It's just. You know. We're in a rough time now."

"Ain't that the truth."

"I've got an errand to run this evening. Can I get some food to go?"

"Sure. What can I get you?"

"Um. I liked that roasted eggplant sandwich quite a lot, actually. With the sundried tomato and basil."

"My pleasure. Anything else?"

"What do you do when you love someone, and the last time you might see them, they're angry at you?"

Randy turned and looked up from the bread he was cutting for my sandwich. "What happened?"

I put my face in my hands. "My boyfriend is gone for what might end up being a long time. We had a fight before he left. He stormed out and slammed the door."

"Blimey. He sounds like a woman."

"He's almost never like that," I shot back, bristling.

A ponderous expression crossed Randy's face. "He didn't come back ten minutes later and try to make it right?"

"No. Not that I know of. I left about twenty minutes after he did. I had to be somewhere."

"No mid-day owls?"

"Nothing."

Randy looked at me queerly for a moment, the bread knife still in his hands. He frowned. "Which one of that lot last night is your boyfriend, again? Was it the one with the patch of gray hair - Remus?"

"James," I said despondently.

"What, really?" Randy cracked a grin. "Well, I'll be damned. You don't seem like the type for him."

I rolled my eyes. "You don't knowme."

Randy shrugged and finished slicing the bread, over which he laid a generous portion of eggplant. "Granted." He added a handful of tomatoes and some fresh basil leaves. "Pesto?"

"Yes, please. Thanks."

"Just remember you love him and that he ought to know that. There's nothing else you can do until he comes back."

The threat of tears surged in my chest. Breathing deeply, I put my forehead in my palms, clutching my hair. Randy made a clicking sound with his tongue as he wrapped my sandwich and placed it before me. He patted my shoulder. "Sorry, lass. I know what you're going through. My son is off getting himself killed in this war too. My wife can't believe we raised such a damn fool. Personally, I agree with her. We haven't seen him in a month."

"How do you live with it?"

"We don't." Randy smiled ruefully. "But he thinks this is worth his life. We fought him, tried to keep him from going. He won."

"How old is he?"

"Twenty-five. Young wife and everything."

"Maybe I know him," I murmured, picking at the paper wrapping of my sandwich.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you did."

My stomach twisted. I was being foolish. "Is it even safe to talk like this here?"

Randy snorted. "This place isn't Hogwarts, lass, but I know my clientele and I know some magic. Anyone with the Dark Mark comes strolling into my pub, I'll have half the Auror Department storming in here in minutes." He nodded toward the door, giving me a pointed look. "That door is rigged with about a dozen different repulsion charms. It's got an alarm, too. Goes straight to the Aurors' offices whenever someone with a trace of Dark Magic on them walks through. Plus all the usual Concealment charms in the walls."

I bit my lip and considered telling him what I had learned today - that his alarm system would probably soon be compromised and that he should lie low - but then I thought better of it. "Thanks, Randy," I nodded. I reached into my pocket and took out a handful of coins. "How much do I owe you?"

"Ten Sickles."

"Fantastic," I muttered. I counted out the coins and passed them over the bar. "Take the other ten for tip," I added, seeing the look on Randy's face. "I mean it."

"I can't take this much from you. You probably don't have ten Galleons to your name."

"No, really," I insisted. "Consider it a thank-you for keeping this place a safe haven. Now if you think you're going to force me to keep it, you have another thing coming." I slid off the bar stool and fastened my cloak. Randy raised an eyebrow.

"I'd better go," I said, taking the sandwich. "Thanks for everything. I'll see you 'round, I'm sure."

"Be careful."

x.x.x.x.x.x

A cool, damp wind rushed over my face as I Apparated into Hogsmeade. It was getting towards dusk now, with the sun beginning to burn a slightly orange hue. A few clouds moved serenely over the northern mountaintops, silent and slow.I closed my eyes. The scent of pine and recently melted snow filled my lungs like a balm, and for a moment I merely stood there, alone on a hedge at the far outskirts of the town, breathing the freshness of it. A bird chirped somewhere above me, an innocent, questioning little trill.

_Aidan, _I thought. _I'm coming to speak to you. You're the reason I'm here. _

I opened my eyes, but didn't move. There was an aching pressure in my chest - a longing for something, perhaps. I could see Honeydukes in the distance, across the street from Zonko's and Madam Puddifoot's. The shops were quiet save for the occasional tinkling doorbell or windchime; only the Three Broomsticks seemed to hold a hubbub. The door swung open and a laughing couple emerged, swaying lightly, gripping each others' hands. The man dipped the woman and kissed her, and the sound of her laughter carried through the evening stillness like a clear glass bell.

I threw myself behind the hedge and crouched there in the brush, fumbling for my wand. I felt as though the sky were spinning above me. The last person on Earth I felt like speaking to was Aidan Silverman. Some fourteen-year-old boy, probably knee-deep in his grief, in need of a parent, a brother, a mother -

_Stop_, I told myself. _Stop. _

Every inch of my body felt like lead. I couldn't think anymore. Not now, not here. Not when the perfume of living pine and early spring blossoms hung heavy in the air.

Dumbledore. Dumbledore needed to know what I had discovered. Of course. Obviously. Dumbledore. He should be in the castle - shouldn't he?

With a trembling hand I pointed my wand at the center of that revolving blue, focusing on the point of stillness between the treetops and clouds.

_"Expecto Patronum," _I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. _"Vox. _Um. To Dumbledore." I sucked in a breath, hearing the silvery mist gather and begin to spin before me. "I need to talk to you."

I paused for a moment, watching my Patronus emerge from the swirling silver mist. Like me, she paused, dipping her head to the ground. I stared in bewilderment. Why was she - ?

_Oh. _

"To Dumbledore," I shouted, slashing my wand in the direction of the Hogwarts castle; instantly the doe condensed into a tiny, blazing silver light and shot into the sky. Exhaling, I slumped against the hedge and watched her disappear over the castle turrets. A trickle of sweat made its way down my temple.

I lay back and let my mind go blissfully blank as I watched the sky gradually darken. I must have dozed off - probably only for a few minutes, though it felt like an eternity - because the next thing I knew, there was an answering silver light arcing over the treetops, and then - I felt my heart surge in my chest - the silver light was crashing before me like a meteor, phoenix wings unfolding as it landed:

"Come to my office," said a deep, sonorous version of Dumbledore's voice. "Be assured that nothing shall stand in your way."

I expected the phoenix to vanish into a mist after that, but it did not; rather, it condensed again into a tiny orb of light and floated in front of me as if beckoning me to follow. Taken aback, I clambered to my feet and scrambled after it as it zipped off toward the castle.

_Fucking Dumbledore, _I thought, panting. I laughed out loud when I saw that the orb was leading me to Honeydukes. Slipping on the gravel road, I skidded to the door of the candy shop, nodded hello to the very confused-looking owner, and saw - out of the corner of my eye - the orb completely engulf him for a split second. When he looked up again, he merely smiled and waved as I tore open the trapdoor and threw myself under the floorboards.

In the cramped dirt tunnel, the orb continued to race ahead of me - but, miraculously, I found that I could move my arms and shoulders with ease, as though the tunnel were twice its actual diameter. Curious, I tried to stand and found that I could; with a giddy whoop I broke into a run and tore after the silver light, that tiny phoenix dancing ever before me.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Dumbledore was pacing around his office when I stumbled in, panting, sweaty, and smeared all over with dirt. Immediately Dumbledore conjured a goblet of water, peering silently over his half-moon spectacles as he pressed the goblet into my trembling hands.

"Sit down, Lily," he said gently, guiding me to a wooden chair facing the large stone desk. His blue eyes were bright and piercing; and behind him, in brilliant crimson and gold plumage, was Fawkes the Phoenix, perched regally atop the back of the Headmaster's chair. Rays of the setting sun sliced through the high office windows, casting an orange and gold blaze on the edge of every chrome surface. Blinking, I sat down.

"How can I help you, Lily?" Dumbledore asked, seating himself at his desk and turning that piercing gaze on me.

My tongue seemed to catch in my mouth. "Sir. I…er." I gulped.

"Take your time. I have no other appointments."

Something about that statement brought a tired, giddy laugh into my throat. Giggling, I tried to sip the water without spitting everywhere. Finally I managed to swallow. "That Patronus was amazing," I choked out. At this Dumbledore's eyes lit up, and his face broke into a smile of pure childish delight.

"Oh, so you liked my little experiment!" he clapped, looking positively tickled. "I have only tried that once before. It didn't work quite as I'd hoped. It took me three months to pay for the damage to that poor witch's bakery."

_"Really?" _I gushed, sure that my mouth was hanging open.

"Oh yes," Dumbledore replied, scratching his cheek a bit uncomfortably. "It was a yeast roll massacre! Alas, youth." He gave me a rueful smile.

The ridiculousness of my situation just made me giggle harder. "I - sorry, sir." I took a deep breath and chuckled. "I just - that was something new. I didn't know that was possible. The bloke at Honeydukes just smiled at me and told me to have a nice evening as I was ripping up his floorboards. And then I got up on my feet and _sprinted _down a two-foot-wide dirt tunnel."

"Really?" Dumbledore looked both amused and bemused. "How funny. I would never have thought it would take you through Honeydukes."

Nodding, I sipped at my water. Then, suddenly realizing how thirsty I was, I gulped the rest of it down. I coughed. Dumbledore waved his hand and refilled the goblet.

"Thank you," I said hoarsely.

"You are very welcome, Lily."

For several long moments we sat quietly. I closed my eyes, feeling my recently-returned (and vengeful) headache ease imperceptibly as the water began hitting my bloodstream. "Thank you," I said again.

"Judging by your rather disheveled appearance, a hydrating draft would seem to be the least one could provide. Not, of course," Dumbledore added with a friendly twinkle in his eye, "that I am criticizing your fashion sense."

"Sir," I said abruptly. My tongue seemed to have disentangled itself, and now the words came pouring out: "The Death Eaters are infiltrating the Ministry of Magic. I don't know how much the Minister knows. I don't even know how much you know. But I was in there today. I think I might have endangered one of the clerks - this woman - Nancy Selwick - I used _Obliviate _on her when I finished talking to her, but I don't know how good that'll be if they kidnap her and use the countercurse. And this man, Halpern - Mark Halpern. He's the one responsible, I'm completely sure of it, he's not marked yet, I mean he doesn't have the Dark Mark - I think it must be good cover for him or something. He cut the surveillance feed from the Law Enforcement filing offices, too. I'm sure he bought off whoever was watching the feed. Or threatened them. And I don't think it's the Aurors who are watching it, otherwise they would have known right away - but still, I don't get it, it makes no sense that they weren't on top of this - how is it that they had to send _me _in there to find out that there are unmarked Death Eaters taking over the Ministry from the bottom up? I don't - " I wrung my hands - "honestly, sir, I don't know _anything."_

Dumbledore was watching me seriously, his fingers steepled. The slight narrowness of his eyes disturbed me. "I mean, it really makes no sense," I went on, feeling a tremor in my voice. "The Ministry is on our side, isn't it? The Aurors have the whole building locked down, every single floor - how is it that they haven't noticed an infiltration happening right under their noses? It wasn't until Alice noticed some kind of contraband payment to Halpern's Gringotts vault that they even realized he might have been bought off - I'll bet it was Lucius Malfoy's money, the fucking dog - "

A look of pain and horror flashed in Dumbledore's eyes now, but a split second later, his face was cool and stoic again. "Go on, Lily."

"And the other thing - Severus Snape. He turned up in the bloody Headquarters of the Order. He was right in the bloody breakfast room." My voice was rising now, threatening to shudder out of control. "He's been contacting me. He claims he wants to help me. I don't think I can trust him anymore. I don't know who he's been talking to or what his intentions are. But he's a threat, I'm sure of it. He has the Dark Mark. And he just walked straight into our fucking _breakfast room."_

Briefly, Dumbledore shut his eyes. When he opened them again, his gaze was even and calm. "You are right to suspect Severus Snape. He is trying to win the Dark Lord's favor, and I am sure he will succeed. You must tread with great caution around him. But I do not think that he means you personally any harm."

"So what?"

"I agree."

"So…what do you think I should do?"

Now Dumbledore looked pained. "I have my opinions, but I cannot tell you."

Realization dawned over me. "You were the one who put me up to be a spy. It wasn't Moody's idea. It was yours."

Dumbledore smiled ironically. "Actually, that is incorrect. I merely told Alastor that he was underestimating you. He told me about your first dueling lesson. He was of the opinion that James would be far more useful than you. I heard that you had been pushed into the role of obituary writer and that, understandably, you did not quite like it. I wanted to give you a chance. And as I think we can both agree," he added gently, "I was right. You have delivered. More than I had expected, actually, and at a time when there is grave need for it."

"What have I delivered?" I whispered in horror. I knew what Dumbledore was going to say.

"I will contact Alastor myself and have him take everyone in the office you infiltrated today into custody. We will put them on trial with Veritaserum. But first, Lily, I need your records."

"I left them in the Chamber of Memories."

Dumbledore lifted his wand. From the tip blossomed a round onyx-colored flask. "Leave duplicates with me," he said, passing me the flask. I stared at him; his eyes flashed. _"Now,_ Lily."

Catching my breath, I nodded and drew my wand, pulling the silver strands from my forehead and watching them slip into the flask.

"Thank you," Dumbledore murmured when I finished.

"_How _did Snape get into Headquarters?"

Dumbledore capped the flask impassively. "Severus Snape has had some difficulty choosing his allegiance. But I assure you, there is no way he could have entered Headquarters bearing the Dark Mark. I have seen to it personally that that is not possible. He must have received his Mark after you saw him - though I assume he _does _have the Mark by now?"

I looked up. There was no mistaking the question in his voice.

"Alice tells me he has the Dark Mark. I haven't seen it myself."

Dumbledore gave a heavy sigh. "I would trust Alice, then."

"She's so good," I said hoarsely. "All of them are so good at what they do. How is the Ministry collapsing under their noses?"

"But you've seen it yourself," Dumbledore said, his eyes piercing mine. "You do not need me to tell you how overstretched the Aurors are, Lily. They spend their days stalking Death Eaters in nooks and crannies of this country that neither you nor I can even dream of."

"But they're around. I see them at Headquarters all the time. There's always someone on duty - "

"Ah, but the ones you see are at Headquarters training recruits like yourself. They are going about the business of existing between fights. They are, as it were, coming home for a meal, a catnap, and a new set of orders."

I dropped my gaze and stared silently at my shoes, which were muddy and untied.

"Is there anything else you wanted to tell me, Lily?" Dumbledore asked kindly.

I thought about pleading for help. Any kind of help, whatever kind of help I could have - anything, so long as I didn't have to decide what to do. I opened my mouth to speak; what came out surprised me.

"I think there's a whole army of unmarked Death Eaters." The words were flat, deadpanned. "I think there are more like Halpern hidden everywhere. I think he's the tip of the iceberg, and that for every one we find, there are five more that we don't find."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers again. "That is very likely. I had been estimating the number to be closer to perhaps two or three for every one that we have found. But considering what you have just told me, I suspect that you are correct."

"I want to be wrong. Merlin let me be wrong."

"I think it is very much to your credit that you suspect the Dark Lord is raising an army of Unmarkeds."

I clutched the edges of my chair, rocking slightly.

"Fear is normal," Dumbledore said. "I do not blame you."

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, to pull myself together. I opened my eyes and focused on Fawkes, who was watching me with great intensity. Breathing deeply, I began counting the tips of the tail feathers not obscured by Dumbledore's chair. Crimson, gold, pearly bronze. Half a dozen at least.

When the adrenaline stopped thundering in my ears, I looked at Dumbledore again. He was watching me with an expression of concern.

"Sir - "

"You may call me Albus if you wish, Lily. It has occurred to me that you are perhaps not my pupil any longer."

"Sir," I said again, looking down at my sneakers. "I need to speak to Aidan Silverman. Could you maybe - "

"Tell you where to find him? Why, yes." Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles. "If I were you, I would start with the Quidditch pitch."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Dusk had fallen when I arrived on the pitch. A thin, crescent moon was rising over the dark treetops, and the pitch was dark. It had been years since I'd been on the pitch at night, and the memory of it made me feel small and young. James had brought me out here once when we were sixteen, nearly seventeen - just beginning our Seventh Year - for what he'd called flying lessons, but which had quickly turned into a late-afternoon snogging session after I had crashed into the goal post three feet off the ground and gone careening off my broomstick. At some point during this fray the sun had begun to set, prompting him to explain that during night matches and practices, the pitch was lit by massive torches whose flames were magically enclosed to avoid people scorching themselves when they flew past.

_"The referee really ought to call foul if that happens," James said, checking my muddied face for bleeding cuts after my crash. "But a lot of times they don't, because really they're just mental like that."_

_"What about when people are just flying terrible brooms?" I asked, spitting out a bit of dirt. "I absolutely blame you for this. This broom is bloody terrible. I mean, I'm not a great flyer, but I don't typically crash into things three feet off the sodding ground."_

_James grimaced. "I'm really sorry, Li - Evans. I tested it before I gave it to you. It was fine when I flew it."_

_Wiping my hands on my jeans, I spit one more time. I had nearly swallowed a pebble. "It's all right. Wasn't a serious crash." I grinned crookedly; he was biting his lip, blushing something fierce. "But I am definitely never going to let you live it down. Fair is fair."_

_James stared at me in horror. "I really blew it, didn't I."_

_"No, really, it's all right," I laughed, embarrassed. "This was better than Puddifoot's. Really."_

_"I just realized I could have put you in the hospital wing. _After _you finally agreed to go out with me."_

_The look on his face was too much. I burst out giggling. "Potter. Seriously." I reached up and raked a hand through his hair, finding it unexpectedly soft to the touch. He looked up in surprise. I quirked a little smile. _

_"Well," he said hesitantly, raising his hand to trail a finger ever so lightly along my chin. He swallowed. "I don't think anything's broken."_

_"Nothing's broken," I confirmed._

_James shifted nervously, not seeming to know what to do with the hand that was now cupping my cheek. "Look, Evans, I - "_

_"Lily." I reached up and touched his hand with an awkward smile. "It's all right. You can call me by my name, you know. Like, I have a name, you can use it. And…stuff."_

_"And stuff?" he repeated incredulously. Then he broke into a fit of almost giddy laughter. "And _stuff? _Ev - Lily." He paused for a moment, seeming to savor the sound of my name. Then, sobering a bit, he put his hands chastely on my waist and rested his forehead against mine. He laughed softly. "This is really awkward. I mean this is actually pretty excruciating."_

_His lips were inches from mine; I was far too preoccupied contemplating how soft they looked to have any idea what he was talking about. I felt blood rush hotly into my cheeks. "Well, er - what are you waiting for?" _

_"For you to slap me, actually," James confessed, sounding a bit strained. "I mean, you're going to, aren't you?"_

_I blinked. Paused. Then comprehension dawned, and I laughed, a bright, tinkling laugh from the pit of my stomach. Smiling, I twined my arms around his neck, and James stared at me, stunned. _

_"I'm not going to slap you," I said softly, the smile still playing on my lips. "Definitely wasn't planning on it. I mean, I think you're alright."_

_"Wait, are you serious?"_

_"No, James," I giggled, and something in his eyes changed at the sound of his first name. "No, I'm not serious at all. I think you're an arrogant, bullying toe-rag. And I hate you forever. Also, your ulterior motives are despicable. Putting the nice Gryffindor Head Girl on a broomstick. That's just wrong in so many ways." _

_At this James's face broke into halting, disbelieving grin. "Seriously?"_

_"Yes. Absolutely."_

_"I, uh. I actually have no idea what you just said to me."_

_"That's okay. It wasn't anything important."_

_"Lily - " James stopped and lifted my chin. I looked up. He was biting his lip, and his hazel eyes were tender, disbelieving, uncertain. I thought they were beautiful. I clasped my hands tentatively behind his neck and nodded. _

_That was all he needed. I felt his hand cup the back of my neck and the other move to the small of my back as he pulled me tightly against him, burying his face in my hair. Then, with a shallow, heady breath, he kissed me full on the mouth. _

That had been during broad daylight. I never got to see the torches that night, though, because for as long as we were there, the pitch remained empty, and we two alone, counting meteors and watching the constellations move slowly across the sky. I had never felt safer or more loved than I had that night.

I craned my neck back in search of a figure that might be Aidan. What I saw instead, however, were stars and Milky Way. For a long time I stood motionless. Defying all rational thought, flying in the face of every grounded fiber of my being and chilling me down to the bone, was an intense feeling of loneliness. - There was no reason for it. I couldn't imagine that I had ever in my life been truly alone. But right there, right then, I felt hopelessly, crushingly isolated.

I pondered this for a moment, trying to resist the feeling. Then I realized what it was, simply and drably: There were just burdens that I would have to shoulder alone from now on. I could not be a child any longer. I was a member of the Order of the Phoenix and there were going to be precious few people I could speak to about my work without endangering their lives and families. James, assuming he survived his first excursion with the Aurors, would not be able to help me. Not out of lack of love, I realized. But simply out of the lack of safety and power - the lack of brute-force, defensive strength.

_So that's what it comes down to, _I thought, a thin figure sailing across the stadium catching my eye. _Not love or conviction or moral ideals. Just power and defensive strength, and whoever has the most of it. _

I craned my head back to gaze into the sky, imagining myself a fresh and flexible pawn on a vast, mountainous chess field. I cupped my hands around my mouth.

"HEY, AIDAN!" I shouted. "COME DOWN HERE FOR A MINUTE, WILL YOU?"

x.x.x.x.x.x

Aidan landed with a thud and stumble, but recovered quickly. He was about my height, but lankier and with bigger hands. I could just make out the trace of freckles dotting the bridge of his nose; his hair was dark and slightly overgrown, falling sullenly over his eyes. He held a Quaffle under one arm. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm a friend of your former captain."

"There've been two of them. Saunders didn't last."

"I was talking about Potter."

Aidan shrugged and shouldered his broomstick. "Oh."

"I'm just saying. I lived in Gryffindor House with you not too long ago. You can relax."

Aidan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You were Head Girl, I remember now. Lily, right?"

"That's me."

"So. What do you want?"

"To ask you what you'd like the newspapers to say about your brother, when they print his obituary."

Aidan stiffened, and I saw a muscle in his jaw twitch; his mouth contorted in disgust. His fist tightened around his broomstick. "They're going to print a fucking _obituary?"_

"Yes," I said dryly. "And, oddly enough, I'm the one who has to write it. So help me out, will you? Help me make it _not_ terrible."

"I don't want anything about my brother in the newspaper. _Ever."_

I put my hands in my pockets and waited for him to continue. After a long, uncomfortable silence, Aidan swore and hurled the Quaffle against the bleachers, where it scattered a pile of spare Quidditch gear and ricocheted into the aisle. "Fine. Fucking interrogate me. What?"

"Just tell me something you would be all right with the rest of the world reading about him."

"Yeah?" Aidan said, his voice cracking. "Okay. How about this? He was fucking stupid. I told him those guys he was talking to were bad news. I _told _him. But no! My fucking brother decides I'm just a kid and he can go and have a - have a fucking laugh and a joke with a bunch of Slytherin arse-kissers who were _obviously _out on a raid. Remember Evan Rosier? Remember that fucking arsehole? The one with that fucking blond cowlick that he slicked off to the side with hair shit made for _girls?"_

"Yeah, I remember that fucking arsehole," I said wryly, patting the bleachers next to me. "Hated his guts. Want to sit down?"

Not seeming to realize he was obliging me, Aidan dropped his broomstick and sat. "Yeah. _That _cocksucker. So he and this other guy, some prig with a goatee and a beer gut, they come and knock on the door _in the middle of the fucking night. _This is spring holiday, so I'm home and I hear this. I was afraid we were all going to die right there, I'm the only one in the house with a wand, you know - so I'm yelling at my fucking stupid brother to get Mum and Dad and hide in the cellar. But no! No, what does he do? He _opens the door."_

I leaned my elbows on my knees and propped my chin in my palm, watching him silently.

"And of _course_ it's Rosier," Aidan barreled on, a look of anguished denial on his face. "He's smirking, you know, like he owns the place. He says some shit like, 'Oh, we're out on the bloody town, looking for some excitement, care to join?' And I'm like shoving Orion away from the door, telling him no, don't do it, they'll kill you. But the idiot doesn't listen."

"What did he do?" I asked softly.

"He pushed me away," Aidan bit out. Suddenly he gave a loud, shuddering sob. He buried his face in his hands.

I put my hand on his shoulder, but he flung it away and rounded on me. "Don't touch me," he snarled. "You don't _understand _this."

I bristled slightly at that, but held my tongue. "Okay. What happened next?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Can you tell me which other Death Eaters you saw?"

"I don't know the name of the one with the goatee."

"What did he look like?" I pressed.

"I don't fucking know! Dirty blond. Sleazy."

"I think I know who he is," I said dryly. "Aidan, please tell me what happened."

"I can't."

"Have you at least told Dumbledore?"

Stiffly, Aidan shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Orion told me to hide and that he'd distract them. He practically threw me into the cellar. Then he left. I came back upstairs and watched them from the window. Locked Mum and Dad in the cellar so they couldn't get in the way. A couple more Death Eaters came around and tied Orion up to a tree while they - while they raped a girl. In the middle of the street."

"Why," I demanded, "did you _not _tell Dumbledore?"

Aidan drew his knees up to his body and hugged them. He was shivering violently now. "I tried. It made me puke."

_Understandable, _I thought. "What happened after that?"

"They tortured Orion. I freaked out. I sneaked out of the house and hid in the bushes for a minute. After a while I couldn't take it anymore and just ran at them screaming. I managed to get Orion untied, I don't know how. He dragged me back into the house. The Death Eaters followed - Rosier split, but the other guy didn't. Neither did Dolohov. Anyway, there was a lot of screaming. Orion was throwing stuff at them. Dishes, books. Then one of the Aurors showed up."

"Frank Longbottom?" I asked quietly.

"I think so."

"So Frank started dueling Dolohov," I said, watching Aidan intently, "and Dolohov cast the Killing Curse at Frank - but it hit Orion instead?"

Aidan shuddered. There was a long pause. Then, in a small, cracked voice: "How do you know that?"

"I heard the story."

"From who?"

"A friend."

"From _who?" _Aidan demanded, clutching my forearm now. He was digging his nails in; he looked quite deranged. "Tell me! I have to go with them!"

In a panic, I tore my arm loose. "You're not going anywhere. I can't let you. You'll be killed."

"Well, maybe I _want _to be!" Aidan shouted, jumping to his feet. "Did you ever think of that? Did you?"

"Trust me, you have no idea."

"No! _You _have no idea! I watched my brother get tortured and killed! While my parents were locked in the fucking cellar!"

"Aidan," I said a bit desperately, trying to get a grip on his wrists, "You have to tell me. What else did you see that night?"

"As it if makes a fucking difference!"

"It does!" Fearing that he might get on his broomstick and go speeding off into the Forbidden Forest or some such thing, I had backed him up against the bleachers and forced him to sit down again, pinning his knees between my thighs; he was putting up a mighty struggle. "I'll let you read the obituary before I send it in, Aidan, I don't care about that - but you have to tell me. Tell me, or tell Dumbledore, or tell somebody. This information is important. Why did Rosier split? Did he say anything before he left? _Tell me!"_

"I don't know," Aidan sobbed, wrenching his arm out of my grasp and attempting to stomp on my feet. "Let me go!"

Surprising myself, I took his face in both hands and shook him a bit, forcing him to look up at me. _"Aidan!" _I shouted, and suddenly he stilled, watching me through a sheen of tears.

"Listen," I panted, tasting my own sweat, "I don't want to get rough with you. But you have to stop trying to take my head off, okay?"

Grimacing, Aidan nodded.

"Okay." Gently, I rubbed the tears off his cheeks with my thumbs. "And you have to promise me you won't run off and try to join the fight. Not just yet."

"I can't promise you that," he mumbled.

"You have to."

"I _won't_ promise you that."

"No. You have to. Want to know why?"

Aidan rolled his eyes.

"Because the Dark Lord will find a way to force you to do what he wants. You won't mean to join him. You won't even mean to stand by and let him hurt strangers. I'm telling you that he will _make you _do what he wants. He will find your weak spot and he will use it against you. So don't. I repeat: Do not. Run off. To join the fight."

Aidan clenched his jaw. I knelt before him, so that he had to look down to face me. Gently, I gripped his hands.

"You remember something about Rosier," I said quietly. "I'm pretty sure you do. Right?"

Aidan looked away, giving a small shrug. "He has the Dark Mark."

"And?"

He shifted nervously. "I don't know if I heard him right. I don't - I don't want to tell you something wrong and get another person killed. Or tell you something right and have them find out and - kill you, too."

"No, no. Listen, you can only help me, all right? It's okay. Don't be afraid. I'll make sure nobody dies because of anything you say."

Aidan looked up, his eyes red and glassy with tears. "Promise me you won't publish this in the obituary."

"I'm not going to publish any of this. I'm going to write that Orion died trying to protect his family. That's all. I promise."

"All right." Aidan wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "I heard Rosier talking to Dolohov about something. I didn't catch all of it. But I think I heard him say he was bored and wanted to go meet up with a different group. I guess the other group was out that night or something. Remember this was like last week. Not even. Anyway. He said he was going to join Rookwood at Westminster Abbey. Dolohov just made some noise like he thought it was going to be a waste of time, but Rosier actually argued about it. This was after they'd tied up the girl and Stunned her unconscious. Orion was still tied up to the tree. I was hiding in the bushes."

"What were they planning at Westminster Abbey?" I said in a low voice.

"I don't know. They didn't say. But it sounded like something they were going to have to work on for a few days. I don't know if it's too late now."

My heart was thudding. I clasped his hands. "Thank you, Aidan. Is that it?"

Wordlessly, he nodded.

"Bloody hell," I muttered. Then I laughed. "Fucking bloody _flying fucking hell."_

Aidan cracked a small smile. "I didn't know you could swear like that, Head Girl."

"Yeah, makes you hate me less, doesn't it?" I said wryly. Aidan laughed.

"Nah, you're all right. I figured if James could stand you, you couldn't be that bad."

I stifled the urge to wince. "Yeah, he suffers my company like a champ. He can hardly get rid of me." I stood to leave. "Don't commit suicide or anything, got it?"

Aidan rolled his eyes. He picked up his broomstick. "Please."

"Thank you."

His smile widened slightly. "You're welcome."

"Go eat something. Or whatever fourteen-year-old boys do on a Friday night."

"You're not my mother," he said, mounting the broomstick.

I snorted. "Yeah, and thank God for that. Later, Aidan. Thanks for helping me out. I'll send you the obituary before I submit it, and you can cross out whatever the hell you feel like."

Kicking off the ground, he sailed straight upward. "Sounds like a deal," he shouted, his silhouette shrinking against the moonlit sky.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Late that night, after I had stopped at Headquarters to make records of everything I had learned, I Apparated straight into my flat and collapsed into bed without eating, showering, or even taking off my clothes. I kicked off my shoes and let them lie in a muddy pile, neither noticing nor caring about the dirt clods that scattered over my bedroom floor. Within minutes I had fallen into a black and dreamless sleep.

A fresh day was breaking when I woke hours later, silent and still save for the rumble of the first morning truck. Somewhere in the street below, a car door slammed and ignition hummed to life. It was five AM.

Robotically, I went into the kitchen and made tea. The eggplant sandwich from last night was still stuffed into my cloak pocket; I sniffed it, wondering if it had kept.

It smelled all right. I bit in and tasted basil. Swallowing was easy enough.

After I finished, I threw my jeans and t-shirt over the kitchen counter and strode into the bathroom for a shower. Morning light cut through the steam as I scalded my skin pink. Mud and dirt swirled down the drain in a flood of fragrant suds. When I pulled the shower curtain back, I felt fresh and new, like a lubricated machine.

I rubbed some steam off the mirror and silently thanked Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Albus Dumbledore for being too squeamish to send seventeen-year-olds off to fight. The rising sun glinted orange on every chrome surface.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x. .x.x.x.x.x.x. .x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Author's note: **Riiight. Hopefully the length of this monster makes up for the 6-month wait. (It tops 17000 words! Honestly, I don't know what came over me.)

- Anyway, about updates. Right. I can really only promise that I _will_ continue to update; I just couldn't tell you when. Grad school is basically like having a regular job, but with longer hours/more staring at your work going, "WTF just went wrong/why isn't this working/WTF?" (though really, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't love what I do). I'm also terrible at multitasking. When I'm writing, I'm writing nonstop for days and nights on end. Unfortunately, that doesn't work when I'm in the middle of experiments or grant proposals. I'm lame like that. : /

**Now, to the reviewers I haven't replied to yet **(Not that I'm, you know, six months late or anything):

_Allyx14: _Thanks! Lily does have some issues, doesn't she? Nothing too serious, IMO, but I can't imagine that anyone could go through the sort of stuff the poor girl is dealing with without going a little batty. ;)

_Jabberwockiness: _So I totally saw your review as soon as you submitted it, but then I felt like such an idiot for not PM'ing you sooner that I…waited even longer. Gosh, I'm so lame. : / But I'm glad you like the edits/new chapters, and thanks so much for reviewing! It just blows my mind how we as writers change over the years. I still feel like we were fangirls on UR yesterday. - Okay, enough with my nostalgia.

_Freakiess: _Thanks! :)

_musingmarauder: _Glad you like the story of Lily's childhood, because it's one of my favorite things to write! :)

_Equilly: _I do have a lot of fun writing James. ;) So far Lily's been letting him get away with some stupid stuff, the poor lovesick dear. I'm glad you're enjoying his antics.

_Akt5us: _Thanks for the congrats! :)

_george: _Thank you!

_rach: _Vernacular! Ah. So glad you like it! :)

So that's all I've got. Thanks for reading. Reviews are ice cream on a hot summer day! (i.e. optional, but totally awesome.)

Cheers,

- Jenna


	14. For This Unseen

**- Chapter 13: For This Unseen - **

Salty morning wind drove a spray into the parchment draped over my knee and combed wet streaks into the feather of my quill. The ocean was steely and violent, roiling over rocks and boulders. The sun was rising somewhere behind the quilt of clouds and fog rolling starkly over the ocean surface, so that the whole sky glowed with the whiteness of it. I licked my lips and tasted brine; my hands were stiff from the cold. I felt like a machine with no master.

_Orion Silverman_

_Born July 12, 1961_

_Deceased March 1, 1979_

The spray was rapidly streaking up the first lines of the obituary. For long moments I watched the waves break over the rocky shore. Aidan's voice was still fresh in my mind, and as calm as I was, it was as if my hand were resisting.

Running my tongue over the surface of my teeth, I drummed the fingers of my free hand against the parchment. The interview was over, wasn't it? Hadn't I gotten some sort of useful information? Wasn't writing the obituary after all of that trouble supposed to be the easy part? Wasn't this supposed to be the end of this particular story?

_Though non-magical himself, Orion Silverman accepted and was supportive of the fact that his brother was magical. He died at the tender age of 18 in an effort to protect his brother and parents from wrongdoing perpetuated by those who would not have magical and non-magical folk live side by side. His tragic death will remain one of many symbols of the conflict we face today: the conflict between those attempting the genocide of non-magical people, and those who will not stand for it. Orion was a first-year Uni student and was pursuing a degree in history. Perhaps if his life had been spared, he could have taught us some much-needed lessons. Friends wishing to pay their respects are requested to contact his family directly for details of the funeral. _

I paused for a moment to stare blankly at what I'd written. I did not re-read it. I was reasonably sure that it would be held against me at some point, but I did not care. I folded the parchment into thirds, stuffed it into my pocket, and Disapparated.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The corridors at Headquarters were empty that morning, but every office and room was occupied. Recently dispatched Aurors were returning from the field for rest and food, and - to my surprise - several of the offices were crammed with new people who could only have been new recruits. Most of them looked to be adults, my age or older, but some were clearly parents and their recently of-age children, mostly sons. Indeed, many of the adults looked to be from other countries, and the corridors were barking not only with English, but also with French, German, Russian, and even Spanish and Portuguese. I stopped outside an open office room and listened, fascinated.

_"Monsieur," _said a stocky wizard in maroon robes to a figure I quickly recognized to be Sirius Black, "I am honored to aid your friends in their struggle. _Mais, _you should have called us earlier. I am shocked; this situation is quite dire."

"We'd like to thank you for coming, Monsieur Bernard - "

"Please. Anton."

" - Anton. Thanks. We're incredibly grateful for your service and support. Here, let me show you to your room. Unfortunately we don't have private rooms for everyone at the moment, but with a bit of luck we'll be able to find someplace decent for everyone to go - "

Anton cut him off with a gracious little nod. "It is no problem. Probably your Headquarters are the best place to be under these circumstances anyway."

Sirius quirked a smile, seeming to pick up on Anton's decidedly French affect and, oddly enough, mirror it. "I agree. Shall we?"

"Of course." And with that, they hefted Anton's trunk out of the office and marched into the corridor with it. "Lily," Sirius nodded as they passed me. "See you in a bit, yeah?"

"Sure."

With another curt nod from Sirius, the two men strode away.

My heart palpitated as I realized what had happened: Either Dumbledore or Moody - probably Dumbledore - had decided to broaden the ranks of the Order. Anton Bernard, and the other foreigners like him, must be friends or relatives of people in the Order who had been contacted and asked for help.

"Lily," came a voice. I turned. It was Remus.

"We're dispatching tomorrow, did you get the word?" he asked, wiping sweat from his brow. He was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and a pair of old trainers; there was a blush in his cheeks and he seemed particularly alert. His wand was sticking out of his pocket and he looked as if he had just been dueling.

"Well, now I have," I replied, glancing over a fresh gash along his bicep. I frowned. He was looking oddly agitated today. Perhaps the full moon was approaching? "Practicing?"

"Yeah. Last chance before we're out looking for a fight. There are a handful of people in there now - you should probably join us, yeah?"

"Oh," I said blankly, not processing any of what Remus had said. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"I'm thinking I might try to get some sleep before we head out. Haven't gotten much of that recently." Remus licked his lips. "Come with me to get some food?"

"Oh," I said again, this time very stupidly, "was last night your…?"

Remus shook his head. "Couple days from now. I'm bloody peckish. Honestly? All I want is a bloody slab of bacon. - Actually, a steak. A rare steak."

"What are you going to do if the full moon comes before we get back?"

"Bite some Death Eaters. Eat some steak."

"Sounds like a situation that could easily get out of control."

"Well, you know me," Remus replied dryly, although there was a faint note of humor in his voice. "I'm not much for control."

We rounded the corner, and the aromas of the breakfast room wafted over to us, beckoning. My mouth watered.

_"Damn _it," Remus exclaimed. He sniffed the air. "Eggs _again? _What, could they not find a single hog or cow in all of Britain? Just - urgh! Fuck!"

"What've you got against eggs? I love eggs."

"They come from hens! They have no _blood!"_

"Eggs. With nice, creamy yolks. Remus, I don't understand you."

"They're _infant chickens," _Remus said emphatically, as though this explained everything. He helped himself to a plate at the end of the serving table and immediately began to load it with scrambled eggs. "I mean, look at this. What about this is acceptable? Jiggly, yellow eggs."

"Here, Remus," I grinned, tipping a bottle of ketchup over the rim of his plate. "This'll mask the taste."

"Actually, I quite like eggs. Just not as much as steak."

"We'll get you some steak, don't worry."

"I hate steak."

I patted his shoulder. "I know you do."

Remus shoveled a pile of ketchup-slathered eggs onto a piece of toast and took a large, wolfish bite. "I'm like a pregnant woman. I want to bite the back off of a cow."

"Oh, now that's just rich," I laughed, filling up my own plate with eggs, toast, and fruit. "I don't see you puking and crying. Just hogging the ketchup."

Cheeks stuffed with food, Remus held out the bottle, looking at me pointedly.

"Thanks."

"Av-ly vrr."

"What?"

He swallowed. "Absolutely vile," he said, watching me dump ketchup over my scrambled eggs. "I think I'm going to go puke and cry from watching you do that."

"I think I'm going to laugh from watching you eat it."

Remus snorted into his food. "Vile. That's all I've got to say."

For a moment we stood there in silence, eating, while recruits I didn't recognize and senior Aurors alike milled in and out of the room, helping themselves to food, coffee, and tea. For all his bluster, Remus was most definitely not finding eggs and ketchup to be vile - rather he seemed to be enjoying them quite a lot - but his eyes were darting around the room, his shoulders twitchy and tense; he was obviously extremely worried about something.

Just as I opened my mouth to ask what that something was, Sirius walked into the room. Without acknowledging us, he went to the breakfast table and, in a series of precise, if very slightly violent movements, began serving himself a plate full of toast, eggs, and - rather pointedly, I thought - ketchup. His dark hair fell dashingly to the side of his brow, nearly covering one eye. Something dangerous glinted in his pupils, and in that moment I saw what Remus seemed to smell.

I stepped directly in front of Sirius. He appeared to be looking straight through me.

I kept my voice low. "What happened?"

Now Sirius looked up. I shot a glance at Remus, who was now keeping his face carefully impassive. He was still chewing.

"You looked fine a minute ago," I said to Sirius. "What's up with Anton?"

Sirius shook his head. "Nothing's wrong with Anton. I like him."

"So?"

There was a pregnant pause. I glanced over at Remus; he was watching Sirius apprehensively. Finally, Sirius exhaled through his teeth, a long, hissing sound. "So you think we should tell her about that," he said, looking at Remus. Mutely, Remus nodded.

"Well then." Glancing furtively behind him, Sirius put his plate down; in the beat of silence that followed, I realized that we were alone, at least for the moment, in the gray morning light that shone through the one window at the end of the breakfast room. I shifted my feet. Sirius cracked his knuckles; Remus cast him a warning look.

"All right, I get it," Sirius snapped, and at this Remus seemed to recoil ever so slightly. Sirius blew out a breath and straightened up, forcing the oddest smile I'd ever seen on him. "Lily," he said, "what Remus wants me to tell you is that my family is basically as fucked up as usual."

I blinked in surprise. "Okay…?"

Sirius gritted his teeth. "Moony - seriously…"

"Voldemort threatened Lucius Malfoy," Remus cut in, giving Sirius a look of disgust. "We don't know why. Word came in from Andromeda. She still talks to Narcissa here and there, and we reckon - "

"We reckon that's how she found out," Sirius bit out. "All right, Moony? Can we stop - "

"Andromeda advised everyone to lie low," Remus said coolly.

"And she has no basis for doling out advice," Sirius shot back. "She _thinks _Voldemort threatened Malfoy. She _thinks _this because Narcissa started blubbering to her about how tough old Lucy has it or some shit like that. 'Oh, Andromeda, Lucy's hair won't lie flat, I can't get it to braid, he's positively puffed up, his job is so hard - '"

"Padfoot - "

"Really, Remus, I don't understand your fixation with my stupid family."

"I'm just - "

"Taking them way too seriously."

"I really don't think so."

"More seriously than you're taking _me!"_

Those words seemed to hit Remus like a blow to the cheek; wincing, he looked away. There was a blush rising in his cheeks, and he clenched his jaw as if that would help him hide it. "You're being really vain right now, Padfoot."

"As I should be!" Sirius's voice was rising to a booming pitch. "I'm Sirius Black, don't you know, dashing and rebellious and all that - "

"So what happened?" I demanded. Sirius and Remus whirled, both seeming to have forgotten I was there. I put my hands on my hips; the two of them merely gawped at me.

"What happened?" I said again, growing impatient.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "What Moony said," he replied, and Remus visibly relaxed. "Just some family gossip."

"Well, it sounds pretty serious to me! And if it's just a bit of gossip, then what's got the two of you bickering over whether or not I should hear it?"

"My family are a lot of lunatics, that's what!" Sirius shouted. His eyes were wild; I had to fight the urge to back away. "They're a fucking lot of wackos, all of them, and I don't know why any of you take them seriously! At all!"

"Um," I said, "because they're unstable and that scares us."

Silence. Sirius blinked. Glanced at Remus. Remus nodded.

Another beat of silence. Suddenly, Sirius seemed to realize that his face was less than a foot away from mine, and he stepped back, scowling. "Granted."

"I told you she'd agree with me," Remus muttered.

"Shut it, Moony."

"And stop with the nickname, I hear people in the corridor."

Raising an eyebrow, Sirius turned and glanced toward the doorway. Indeed, the sounds of footsteps and voices were coming nearer. "Sorry."

"Well," I said. I was thoroughly confused by the conversation that had just taken place. "I could use a dueling partner. Um. Are either of you in?"

"Lily," Sirius replied, putting a protective arm around my shoulders, "I am absolutely in. Can't have you getting flattened tomorrow."

"Wow. You are bloody condescending."

"What, I mean it! I love you like a sister."

Remus gripped my shoulder, too, but his touch was more hesitant - more earnest? than Sirius's. "Don't take it the wrong way," he said gently. "We just promised James we'd steamroll anyone who was serious about fighting with you. But _juste_ _entre nous - _we may or may not need your help."

"Talking French like that, you're _definitely _going to need her help," Sirius said.

"The manliest of men," Remus replied sagely, "are men who do not fear to appear to be pansies."

"And you _rhyme! _God!"

Remus, who had obviously recovered his composure (in spades, it seemed), merely gave my shoulder a little squeeze as the three of us rounded the corner and began heading towards the practice rooms. "He begged me to help him write an apology letter to that pretty Ravenclaw he was chasing half of our Seventh Year, after he made a royal arse of himself."

"Oh, I did _not."_

"And after I finished writing the whole bloody thing for him," Remus went on, "would you believe it? She took him back!"

"Well, yeah. She did. But that was because I practically _told _you what to write."

"I completely won her back for him. But the best part? The entire thing was written _in French."_

"Yeah, she ate it up," Sirius said fondly. "You're right. Can't do without you, Moony."

"Corridors. People."

"Sorry."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Sirius kept his word and dueled with me for the better part of the morning. Actually, he and Remus both insisted on dueling with me long past the point where I had any desire to continue. To my surprise, though, neither of them dueled any more fiercely than I did; rather, they seemed to be letting me set the pace of each attack and counterattack. After a short while it became obvious that they were both doing their best to simply let me practice, stepping here, dodging there, casting counter-curses at speeds I was able to react to without completely losing my rhythm. The realization that our dueling sessions were more for me than for either of them was a little embarrassing, but mostly I was grateful. I had needed this, and I imagined that I would need a lot more of it before I'd be anywhere near ready to face a live Death Eater in a duel.

"All right, keep going, Lily," Sirius said from the sidelines, where he was sitting back against the enchanted mirrors of the dueling room. His hair was soaked with sweat and he wore an expression of calm concentration, almost as though he were planning my next move for me. "When he steps forward - you see what he just did? How his foot twitches when he's about to slash his wand? - Lil? He only does that when he's lifting his wand to slash, he doesn't do it when he's about to jab or flick. He puts his whole shoulder and torso into the slash, that's how you know you're going to have to put up a Shield Charm or dodge away - wait for it…and - now!"

At Sirius's cue, Remus lifted his wand - and, just as Sirius had described - his front foot twitched forward, almost as if he meant to lunge - and a split second later his wand came slashing violently down in an arc of orange flames. Grunting, I threw myself to the side and managed to counter with some flames of my own, which Remus deftly snuffed out with some obscure charm I'd never heard of.

"Okay, good," Sirius coached as I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and resumed my starting position. Remus was already waiting for me, his wand at the ready. "That was good timing…now watch him…careful, sometimes he fakes an attack…"

And on it went, with me dueling Remus, and then me dueling Sirius, and finally the two of them dueling each other while I looked on. Those matches were fast-paced and slightly terrifying, as I had never seen Remus dueling someone near his own skill level before - and after a few exchanges with Sirius, it was clear that Remus was better. Sirius, I decided, was flashy, as Kingsley had said; Sirius moved quickly, fluidly, with a sort of showy drama that Remus noticeably lacked. But Remus's reflexes were impeccable. Every strike and counter strike was perfectly timed, each bearing some kind of bizarre, mechanistic logic: If Sirius moved to slash, Remus would dodge either left or right, always seeming to land just outside the arc traced by Sirius's wand; if Sirius hurled flying objects in Remus's direction, Remus always seemed to have some neutralizing Transfiguration on hand, so that Sirius's knives or ropes or flying furniture disintegrated into sand a good three feet before they could hit their target; if Sirius dodged a curse, Remus always seemed to know where Sirius would go, and Sirius would then just end up jumping on a hex.

"See what he's doing?" Sirius panted at one point, between counter curses. "He can practically smell what I'm going to do. He's making me look like an idiot."

"I just know your style really well," Remus said, raising his wand. He was breathing hard. "Your style - " _slash - _a wall of moving quicksilver vaporized - "is really obvious."

"Yeah, yeah, you say that about everyone." Sirius lowered his wand and wiped his face on his sleeve. He threw a glance at me. "We've been at this for three and a half hours. You done, or do you want to keep going?"

"Because we can do this all day," Remus offered.

"He means _he _can do this all day," Sirius corrected.

I laughed wearily. I rubbed my aching triceps. My arms felt like lead. "I think if I do any more of this, I'm not going to be able to lift my wand tomorrow."

"Fair enough," Remus said kindly. "I'm not actually that good, you know. It's just that Sirius and I have been illegally dueling each other since we were twelve."

Sirius snorted. "He just says that so people won't think he's a brag. Listen." His tone turned sober. "We don't know where we're going tomorrow or what we're going to be doing, so - "

"Really? And here I thought I was the only one who'd missed the briefing."

"Yeah. You weren't. So look. Moony and I really did promise James that we'd take care of you in the field. Sorry if that sounds condescending. But we said we would, and considering how you're getting up to fuck-all on your own, it doesn't seem like a bad idea for us to keep an eye on your arse."

My mind flashed briefly to the bug in Diagon Alley. "Er," I said, glancing from Sirius to Remus, and then back to Sirius. Both of them were watching me intently. I swallowed. Nodded. "Well…okay. Okay, yeah. I mean - as long as you're not, y'know, _following _me while I'm - when you're supposed to be doing something else. I'm not exactly the only person you guys should, er, be worrying about, and all."

There was a heavy pause, and I stood there, unsure of what to say or do. I noticed Remus giving Sirius a pointed look; Sirius responded by pressing his lips into a flat line. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a mirror, which he then held out to me.

"Here. Take this."

I stared at the mirror for a moment, confused. "Is this another Marauder secret?"

Sirius and Remus exchanged glances. After a moment Sirius gave a little chuckle. "Yeah. Call it that. But Remus and I each have one of these. James has one too. And Peter. You look in yours, and your face turns up on everyone else's, no matter where they are. James and I made the original set," he added proudly.

"Yeah, and Pete and I weren't allowed in on it until much, much later," Remus said wryly.

"After the two of them _ruthlessly _accused James and me of being gay together."

"Which we would have been fine with, if you'd have stopped nattering to each other _from separate beds_ through those mirrors. Loudly. All night. When you could have just climbed into bed _together _and been done with it."

"You and Pete were just afraid James and I were going to make cuter babies than either of you would with anyone else," Sirius said good-naturedly. "Anyway, we decided we couldn't leave Moony and Wormtail out of the fun, so we made another set. The new mirrors were originally two-way, like the set James and I used. But last week, James started losing his mind over the thought of you going into the field with the boys - "

" - Not that he's ever not been losing his mind over you," Remus added.

" - So he dragged us all into the loo together while you were off doing something we assume was dangerous - "

" - And after he'd paced around the toilets for about an hour he came up with the idea of having a fifth mirror, and connecting it to all the rest of them so you could scream for help if you ended up alone somehow," Remus finished.

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. I looked down at my feet.

"We're making you an honorary Marauder," Sirius said, holding the mirror out to me again. "For the greater good. This is serious business."

I cracked a weak smile. "For the greater good," I repeated, chuckling. Gently I took the mirror from him. Turned it over in my palm. It was currently displaying a dark view of the inside of someone's pocket. "Wow. Honorary Marauder, hm? This really _must_ be serious."

"Yeah. We don't usually let James get away with this kind of shit."

I bit my lip, wondering if they knew that he'd tried to give me the Invisibility Cloak before his squad had been dispatched, or if they knew we'd had a row over it and that I hadn't heard a word from him since. "Thanks. I'll definitely use this."

Sirius and Remus exchanged glances again.

"He mentioned you two had a row over the Invisibility Cloak before he left," Remus said, his voice oddly soft. Nonetheless, I started - was I really that transparent?

"I just took a wild guess as to why you suddenly got awkward," he added dryly. Sirius threw his head back and laughed.

"Right," I muttered. _Clearly my brain is being invaded right now and I give up on coping with it. _I wiped the fingerprints off my wand with the corner of my shirt. A couple of faint sparks smoked out of the tip. "Right. Okay. Well, Remus, you're officially obnoxious, did you know that?"

"Er, well, I'm not _trying _to be - "

Sirius sniggered. "You totally are."

"I'm just _saying,"_ Remus went on, sounding a touch panicked now. "I just - damn it, Pads - "

"That's Pad_foot _to you, my good sir!"

"Lily," Remus said desperately, "all I wanted to tell you was that James wasn't cross with you when he left. He's really not capable of staying that way. You just - I mean you just seemed upset or something."

I winced. That row with James still felt fresh, even though I felt like a month had gone by over the past twenty-four hours. Everything with James still felt fresh, in fact. How old had I been when I'd first gone out with him, again? Sixteen? - And I had been reflecting on this on the Quidditch pitch - when? Yesterday? Last night? Fifteen hours ago? What the hell had I been doing for the past three years of my life, anyway?

Hesitantly, Remus touched my shoulder. "Lily?"

"Hey. Yeah. I'm fine." I smiled at him; blushing, he removed his hand. "Thanks for letting me know, Remus. You're sweet." At this Sirius let loose a long, loud whistle, but I mashed my palm over his mouth before he could say anything. His response? - The stupid git laughed into my hand, spraying it with spit.

_"Gaw," _I exclaimed, snatching my hand away and wiping it disgustedly on my jeans. "Sirius, for fuck's sake - "

"I'm not secretly a dog for no reason," he giggled, dragging the back of his hand over his mouth. "I drool. Sorry, Lily. It's just that when James is around, I don't get to mess with you. And you're bloody hilarious."

I shifted uncomfortably. "I'm really confused as to how seriously you take the fact that we're dispatching tomorrow."

"Oh, Lily!" Sirius said, sounding positively tickled. "I take it very seriously. _Extremely _seriously. It's just that you're so adorable I can't contain myself."

I looked at Remus in dismay. "Really?"

"Really," Remus replied dryly.

I turned back to Sirius. He grinned.

Seeing that I was going to get nowhere with either of them - not that I knew where I was trying to go, much less whether I should be spending time trying to get there in the first place - I drew a heavy sigh and began tugging at the tangled, sagging ponytail at the back of my head. "I think I'm going to go and pull myself together. I'll see you guys later."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

I slammed into the first loo I came across and threw my back against the door of an empty toilet stall. I stood like that for a long time, shoulders slumped, hugging myself across the chest in the yellow light of the tiled lavatory. At the far end of the wall a dull bronze faucet dripped into a white porcelain sink, a pattering, indecisive trickle. My reflection drooped in the spotty mirror hanging in the sink across from me.

Physically, I was spent. Mentally - I wasn't entirely sure what I was, but if I wasn't spent yet, I thought I must be pretty close to it. I reached up and raked my hands through my hair, clutching the roots. How was I supposed to stay alive in the field if I was this exhausted after only a few hours of moderately-paced dueling practice? What if I met a Death Eater who was as good at dueling as Remus was? And what, for that matter, was I supposed to be doing in the field anyway?

Silence. Then, a flushing sound from the floor above. Suddenly another thought occurred to me.

_What was it about this morning that was just so fucking weird?_

Dropping my hands against the door of the toilet stall, I let my hair fall loose and stared down at my shoes through a curtain of tangled red. Absently I began looking for patterns in the colored mosaic tiles on the lavatory floor. Green, yellow, orange and red squares scalloped together in concentric semicircles like small rainbows, except blue and violet wove between the rainbows and linked them like a chain. I chewed at my lip. Dead skin.

Sirius was the obvious side of the problem, I decided. Clearly he had been the source of the weirdness on Remus's part. - But that was nothing new. As far as I was concerned, Sirius being moody and melodramatic about his family was about as new and interesting as the sky being blue. It was the bit about Lucius Malfoy that worried me, as I remembered Severus Snape's face contorting in the dim light of the pub the night we had met:

_"The Dark Lord is testing his loyalty… But Malfoy is a coward. I would guess that his mission is to find you and take you out for a public torture party… he would most likely pass the job to Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange…"_

I drummed my fingers against the stall, considering. A chill of fear was beginning to make its way up my spine.

_Think, Lily. Be realistic…what's the most important information you could have right now to help you figure this out…come on, think… _

I shut my eyes. What were the odds that Snape was right? Just as importantly, what were the odds that he was telling me the truth?

My mind flashed again to the bug in Diagon Alley, to the exploding candy pits Remus and I had spit into the street that day and the clouds of colorful smoke that had gone up when the bugging device ran over the pits like a person stepping on a land mine. Could that have been…? - But what were the odds of _that? _Could it be, perhaps, that Malfoy had planted the bug - or, more likely, that he'd sent a House-Elf or some other servant to do it for him?

Yes. Of course that was possible. But why? If Snape was telling the truth and Malfoy was actually _tracking _me, then he had to know that I, Lily Evans, was worth tracking, which meant that _Voldemort _thought I was worth tracking - a terrifying thought.

_"He doesn't know it's you," Snape said through gritted teeth. Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. "Lily, please. Let me help you…"_

If Voldemort really was testing Malfoy's loyalty - _Far more likely than not, _I thought - and if Voldemort had in fact recently threatened Malfoy, then that could only mean that Malfoy had done something to provoke Voldemort's ire. The question, then, had to be exactly _what_ Malfoy had done.

I leaned my head back against the stall. My hair lay limply against my mouth, slid sluggishly over my cheeks and chin. "Could be anything," I muttered to myself. "There's nothing. No evidence one way or another to say otherwise."

But still my mind spun on. Had the rest of Diagon Alley been bugged that day? - Did I remember hearing anyone complaining about random Zonko's spy products being planted about the alley in, say, a way that resembled a teenage prank? - No, but that didn't mean Malfoy had planted the bugs. It also very clearly did not mean that Voldemort had threatened Malfoy because I had inadvertently managed to blow one such bug into a cloud of multicolored smoke.

I blew my hair out of my face. A puff of red flew upwards for a split second, then drifted back down to my mouth.

_Really, the whole idea of Malfoy using Zonko's products in an attempt to spy on me is patently absurd. _

_Then again, it's such a stupid idea that Voldemort would definitely punish the person who came up with it. - Which still doesn't mean that's why he threatened Malfoy. _

I let my head droop forward and opened my eyes. The tiled floor looked as ugly as ever. I closed my eyes again, trying to block out the monstrous thought gathering like storm clouds at the edges of my mind:

_You are dead certain that someone is after you, but you don't know who they are or what they're going to do to you. Actually, you don't know if anyone's after you at all, but that added uncertainty just makes this situation even worse. _

Now I lifted my head and looked into the mirror, facing down my haggard reflection. The green of my irises seemed to clash wildly with the red mess that was my hair. My lips, soft and pink, were parted. I snorted in realization: My mouth was hanging open.

"You know what people call this," I muttered to myself, watching my lips mime the words in the mirror. "They call this 'paranoid.'"

x.x.x.x.x.x

"You look pale, Lily," breathed Marlene McKinnon, out of the corner of her mouth. "Are you all right?"

We - and by 'we' I mean myself, Sirius, Remus, Caradoc Dearborn, and Marlene - were in Alastor Moody's office, sitting amongst a parade of Dark Magic detectors and self-defense gadgets while we waited for him to come in and brief us on tomorrow's mission. Sirius and Remus were muttering to one another over a piece of parchment - the Marauder's Map? - as though they were busy scheming something, almost like a pair of schoolboys. Caradoc Dearborn was sitting a few feet away from them and politely pretending not to overhear, twiddling his fingers with an air of philosophy and whimsy. Outside, hopping about on the windowsill, a starling tweeted absurdly.

"I'm fine," I whispered. I wished Marlene wouldn't call attention to the fact that I was still sweaty and disheveled from this morning's dueling practice, and I especially did not want to be reminded that I was out of sorts and possibly beginning to lose my grip. "So where's Moody, do you know?"

"I've seen neither hide nor hair of him." Curiously, she turned and peered toward the doorway, where a hubbub was rising. She frowned. A moment later, four foreign recruits strode in, including Anton Bernard, all chatting rapidly amongst themselves in French.

Quietly, I nudged Caradoc. "Are we getting reinforcements?"

He nodded. "And lucky for it. This lot are all from the French Auror Reserve."

I studied them in awe for a moment. All four of them were men, and obviously fit. Each of them looked to be at least thirty or thirty-five; one had shaved his head bald, and two of the others had some gray hair coming in.

"Is there a reason we need professional help?" I muttered.

Caradoc smiled. "I already spoke to Moody, with the lot of them involved. We're storming the Department of Magical Law Enforcement tomorrow. A tip came through that there are some unmarked Death Eaters taking over the filing rooms. There's another squad of French Reserves teaming up with a few of our own, and they're getting ready to lock down the perimeter while we go inside. Dumbledore's orders."

A wave of adrenaline slammed into my veins. "Dumbledore's orders?" I choked out.

"But of course," Caradoc smiled. There was the most maddening little glint in his eye. "He, Moody, Frank, Alice, Kingsley, and I all looked at your records - all of the Frenchies who'll be joining us did, too. That's how we know who we're after. Try not to look so shocked."

"But - what about the rest of us?"

"Moody heard you were dueling and decided you could use the practice. That's why we're having another meeting now."

Marlene, who had been fidgeting uncomfortably for most of this conversation, now decided it was time to speak up. "Caradoc," she said, her voice tinged with panic, "I wasn't dueling this morning. I had no idea any of this was happening. I was with Gideon and Fabian at the train station, I never got any word that I was supposed to be here - "

"Hey, hey, easy there, McKins." He seemed mildly amused. "No harm done. You were doing your job. We knew you'd report back here when you were finished."

"Well, I'm under orders to do that!"

"And you followed them, didn't you? So here we are."

Marlene set her jaw and glowered at him. Her cheeks were red, her facial muscles hard; to my complete surprise, she looked like a miniature, chestnut-haired terror. "The system you lot are running," she said, her voice low, dangerous, and precise, "is horse shit."

Caradoc's mouth twitched, and for a split second I thought he might snarl back an angry reply; but then his amiable and somewhat inscrutable expression returned, and he merely smiled. "Well, you can't exactly go storming off now."

"And I won't. But I'll say it again: Horse. Shit."

"You know, McKins, you're talking to the bloke who's leading tomorrow's operation," Caradoc said calmly. "I'm forty-five years old and I've been with these people and learning their strategies for longer than you've been alive. I'm here waiting with you right now as a courtesy to Moody, and if you've got a problem with your orders, then I don't have to use you tomorrow."

Marlene's eyes widened. "You're just making a display of power over your subordinates."

"Absolutely," Caradoc replied. "And I'm reminding you that _we, _the Order of the Phoenix and the people in charge of it, are not the people you should be picking fights with."

Marlene bristled, but I put a hand on her arm before she could retort. "Marlene," I said quietly.

Marlene opened her mouth as if to say something, but then she closed it and looked away. "Fine," she said after a moment. "Sorry."

Rather graciously, Caradoc nodded his acceptance of her apology. He seemed completely unfazed. I wondered to myself where exactly James had gotten off thinking he'd tricked this man into telling him where the record rooms were - right now, sitting next to him, it seemed much more likely that Caradoc had simply decided to let James believe he was capable of tricking a senior Auror. It was certainly _possible_ that James was crafty enough to actually do such a thing without Caradoc knowing about it, but then again, it was much _more _possible that Caradoc had immediately seen through James's cockiness, weighed the consequences of playing along against the consequences of shutting James down, and concluded that, at the very least, no harm would be done if he let James win.

_Considering the ordeal they made me go through to discover the record rooms myself, it seems like Caradoc probably _wanted_ James to go digging for so-called "confidential" information, _I thought dryly. _After all, what better way to get James to do something than to make him think he shouldn't be doing it…_

I ran my hands through my hair and yanked painfully at it. This constant internal monologue had to stop, or I was going to lose my mind.

That was the moment that Moody stumped through the door. "All right, lads," he said loudly, pulling his wand out of his robes. "Everybody's here and warmed up, so let's get a move on."

All eyes trained on Moody now, and the room went quiet. Moody was pouring something silver out of a vessel I quickly recognized to be one of my record flasks, holding his wand about midway through the silver stream. One of the French Reserves muttered something to his compatriots as the stream began to evaporate and rise into an iridescent cloud at the front of the room. Moody cleared his throat, continuing to pour.

"So. In case you haven't heard, we are under orders to take out an infestation of unmarked Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic," Moody said, his magical eye rolling from my face to Marlene's, and then to Sirius's and Remus's. He paused and studied us for a moment, his mouth hanging unceremoniously open. "Huh. Seems all of you actually have heard. You do that, Caradoc?"

Caradoc shrugged noncommittally.

"My lie detectors say you have," Moody grunted.

"I did."

Moody grunted again and capped the flask, the silver stream having trickled down to nothing. He waved his wand and muttered a brief incantation, and the iridescent cloud immediately whipped itself into the faces of Mark Halpern, Nancy Selwick, and Alfonso the janitor; Moody repeated the gesture, and eight more faces I didn't recall seeing anywhere blossomed from the cloud as well - three women and five men.

"These are the people we're after," Moody said, gesturing towards Halpern and the eight new faces. "These are the unmarked Death Eaters. This one - " he pointed at Halpern - "was the one who recruited all the others. Our goal is to capture him and every one of his friends alive. These other two," he added, pointing to Nancy and Alfonso, "we're going to take into custody."

There was a long pause. I glanced nervously around the room. Nobody seemed to have any comments. Finally Marlene broke the silence. "For questioning?" she asked, a touch tremulously.

"For questioning," Moody confirmed. "Yes. We need them alive and able to talk, so for the love of Merlin don't pick a duel with a Death Eater and end up hitting either of them. Got it?"

_"Oui, monsieur."_

"Good. So here's the situation." Moody tapped his wand against the flask, and now the faces sprouted bodies and shrank back against an image of the filing rooms, complete with the layout of the clerks' cubicles and the blacked-out surveillance eye mounted on the far wall. "We are going to be taking hostages tomorrow. Everybody but Selwick and the janitor gets captured. The procedure is going to be simple.

"Stage one: Our reserve squad is going to seal off the department while we wait back here. The reserves are going to be positioned here, here, and here." Moody pointed to several points of glowing light on the floating display. "They will be in full Concealment. You won't be able to see or hear them. But they will signal that they have the perimeter locked via Patronus. The Patronus will locate us here at Headquarters and split itself into ten separate fractions. Each fraction will then latch temporarily onto one of you. This will clear you for the next stage of the plan.

"Stage two: Once we've received the Patronus, we also go under full Concealment. Once each of us has his Concealment Charms in place, we Apparate directly into the filing rooms. This will only be possible while the reserve squad is holding the building, as they will be maintaining wards on the place that will selectively permit anyone who has been cleared by the Patronus to Apparate inside. Once everyone is inside, we will maintain concealment and locate each of the suspects. This means we sneak up on them and put them in a full body-bind before they know what hit them. During this period there's going to be fighting. Some of you might lose control of your Concealment Charms. If that happens, either get it back up or neutralize your hostage before he can kill you.

"Stage three: Bring all the hostages to the exit corridor, which is located here." Moody pointed to the far corner of the map. "While this is happening, one of you will get Selwick and the janitor out of the building. McKinnon, this is your job. Make sure neither of them escape or interfere with the process. The rest of us will get busy tying up the hostages and preparing them for temporary imprisonment.

"Stage four: We grab the hostages and Disapparate to the Wizengamot. Dumbledore has personally secured a place for them at the court's detention bloc. The Wizengamot will hold them while each hostage stands trial for bribery, manslaughter, rape, murder, and war crimes."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Moody huffed.

"Well, don't you have any questions?" he barked.

Another silence. Finally, Sirius spoke.

"Then what?" he asked flatly.

This was apparently what Moody had been waiting for; he gave a twisted, toothy smile. "Then we haul everyone found guilty off to Azkaban."

x.x.x.x.x.x

The morning of September 1st, 1971 dawned bright and crisp, the trees beginning to redden with the first hints of autumn. My family's house was all a-flutter with activity as Mum and I dashed frantically up and down the stairs in search of this pair of socks, that box of of quills, this bottle of ink, that pile of spellbooks - from eight to nine a.m., everything was Lily, where did you put your robes?; For heaven's sake, Lily, _why _did you unpack your cauldron _again, _I told you not to take it out of your trunk; _Lily, _let's _go, _your father is _waiting for us in the car _- and so on and so forth, with Petunia sulking tearfully in the back seat with Dad all the while.

_"Lily!"_ Mum shouted as I yanked a fresh set of robes over my head. "Severus is _here _and you're holding us up, come _on!"_

"I need my wand!"

"Well, _FIND IT!"_

"I AM!"

Somewhere down the stairwell I heard her apologizing to Severus, who, as far as I could tell, was probably mumbling inaudibly while looking down at his feet. Snatching my wand from my bed (where I had tossed it a moment earlier, having not had the self-control to leave it packed in my trunk for more than ten minutes since the day my parents had bought it), I sprinted out of my bedroom and went skidding down the stairs. Every nerve in my body was alive and trembling with excitement.

"Oh, poppet," Mum tutted, wiping a smudge of Every Hue's Rainbow Ink off my cheek. "Have you finally got everything, now?"

"I think so," I said breathlessly. I looked over at Severus, who was standing a bit hunched by the door. He met my gaze and smiled ever so slightly.

"Ready, Sev?"

With an uncertain glance at my mother, Severus nodded.

"Don't worry, I'll sit next to Petunia," I reassured him as we followed Mum out the door.

"Okay."

Sensing his hesitance, Mum brushed Severus's overgrown hair out of his face and gave his shoulder a little squeeze. "I know, it's scary being locked in a car with someone else's loopy fam," she said good-naturedly. "Don't worry, we'll make sure you both get to Hogwarts with all your limbs intact."

Severus gave a tight little shrug. "Well, it's not like my father wanted my mother to take me to the train station anyway."

"Oh, Severus, I'm sure he just seems that way."

"I doubt it."

Mum frowned, but persisted. "No?"

Severus shifted uncomfortably. "My mother said I could go with you or I could go with her. She doesn't really care which it is."

"Oh, well. You're quite welcome to come with us if you want."

Severus hung his head and didn't say anything.

"Well, off we go, then," Mum said brightly, pulling open the car door. "In you go, and buckle up. - John, help me check the trunks, will you?"

Dad groaned, but got out of the car nonetheless and walked with Mum behind us to open the boot. "Everything Severus came with, we've got," I heard him say. "No clue if we've got all of Lily's stuff, that was your job."

"All right then, she'll just have to live with it if we've left anything," Mum replied, rummaging through the boot. Then she stuck her head around the side of the car and knocked on my window. "Lily, help Severus find the seatbelt, will you?"

"I've got it," Severus mumbled. "I've already ridden in this car, I've got it…"

"Yeah, like a bloody champ, because we actually drive him around _all the time,_" Petunia said sullenly. Mum rolled her eyes and disappeared behind the boot again.

I clicked my seatbelt into its buckle. "Shut up, Tuney."

"Oh, stop calling me that."

"But I like it!"

Petunia laughed, though she seemed to be on the verge of crying again. "You like everything that sounds weird."

"Whatever," I said contentedly. "Sev, let me see your wand again."

Severus pulled his wand out the sleeve of his robes. The smooth, dark wood was already covered with fingerprints. Fascinated, I took my wand out of my pocket and held it beside his. Mine was shorter, and a lighter, warmer color, with a subtle and satiny finish. I ran my finger hesitantly over the barrels of both wands, noticing the difference between the grains of the two woods. "What've you got again, Sev?"

"Blackthorn and dragon heartstring." He was studying my wand with great intensity. "I bet you're going to be really powerful."

Petunia made an odd sniffing sound. I glanced up at her, but found her staring primly out the window with her arms folded across her chest. I turned my attention back to Severus. "Why?"

"You've got willow - and dragon heartstring too, right?"

"Yeah."

"Willow's a really good wood. Ollivander had me try a willow wand. He said willow wands only pick owners who have a lot of raw talent. I hear they're also really good for non-verbal spells. And dragon heartstring is, you know, pretty powerful."

"What's the difference between willow and blackthorn?"

"Blackthorn's harder to tame," Severus replied quickly. "It's more aggressive."

"Oh…?"

"I don't think there's that much difference between your wand and mine, though. We have the same cores," Severus went on with relish. "Personally, I don't think you could've had unicorn hair in yours. Unicorn hair is so common. It's what everyone who's not _good _at magic gets, because unicorn hair'll choose anyone, even if they're worthless at spells."

"I almost got a unicorn hair wand," I said, indignant. "It was cypress and unicorn hair, Sev, and it almost chose me. And I'm as good at magic as you."

"Yeah, but you got dragon heartstring instead. That's so much better. It would've killed me if you'd gotten unicorn hair. And cypress? That's trollop. Only people who don't know how to defend themselves get cypress wands."

"Well, aren't you a little know-it-all," Petunia snapped suddenly, startling both Severus and me. Her mouth was twisted into a disgusted scowl. "You haven't even startedat your - at your _wizard _school yet, and already you're talking about how Lily would've been some kind of _bug_ or something if she hadn't got almost the same kind of wand as you - "

"Tuney, that's not what he said - "

"Oh, _shush, _Lily," Petunia said disgustedly. "You know what I think of you, Severus Snape? I think you're a little piece of shit."

"Stop that!" I exclaimed. "What's your problem?"

"Her problem is that she's jealous of you and me." Severus's voice was oddly silky, a sound that I would later come to associate with grudges and cold venom. "She knows she's not one of us. She hasn't got the guts or the talent."

"As if you do," Petunia hissed. "You just want to make people feel bad so you can forget you're just a little piece of shit. Just because my dumb little sister doesn't see that doesn't mean it's not true."

"Your little sister is smarter and more interesting than you'll ever be, trust me."

"Stop it, both of you!" I said shrilly. "Sev, apologize to my sister, what's got into you!"

_"She's _the one who's insulting you, Lily."

"No, she says I'm dumb all the time and she doesn't mean it. _You're _being horrible."

But Severus didn't apologize - he only continued to stare at Petunia, a cold sneer playing on his lips. "You know she's jealous of you."

"Why would I be jealous of anyone who has to hang around _you," _Petunia spat, baring her teeth now; I flinched. I had never seen her so recklessly, courageously livid. "You know what you're going to grow up to be, Snape? A miserable, greasy old git who can't get any girls to like him, because you're creepy and you think you know everything. But you don't. You just have to tell yourself that because you're bloody pathetic and you think my sister actually likes you. Well, I've got news for you: You're a prejudiced, ugly, unlovable little snit. And my sister _doesn't like you!"_

A long, painful silence fell over us, and I was distantly aware of Mum and Dad arguing over whether some extra piece of equipment - perhaps our spare tire? - would fit in the boot with the two Hogwarts trunks crammed inside. The car bounced slightly as Dad shoved something hard against the inside of the boot. I glanced uncertainly from Petunia to Severus, expecting Severus to say something cutting and cruel that would perhaps drive Petunia to tears all over again.

But to my surprise, Severus seemed to have entirely lost his footing; the cold sneer was gone from his lips and had replaced by an almost imperceptible tremble. Without another word he turned toward the window, refusing to look at us.

I stared at Petunia, my mouth agape. She was staring furiously out the other window, clenching and unclenching her fists, her cheeks red. I thought for a moment - or perhaps I merely expected - that there were tears in her eyes, but a closer look proved me wrong.

The car shook as the boot slammed shut with a definitive _thunk, _and before I could say anything to either Severus or Petunia, the front doors were yanked open and Mum and Dad climbed in. "All right, ladies and lad!" Dad boomed, ramming the key into the ignition and revving the engine, "it's taken us bloody forever, but we're finally off to King's Cross and Platform Nine and Three-Quarters!"

_CRACK._

I nearly threw myself into the dashboard. Confused, I looked around; Petunia was stunned, too, and Dad was swearing. The top of the boot was visible in the rearview mirror, bouncing squeakily - and then, through the car door that had been blasted open, I saw what had caused the explosion: Severus Snape was already twenty feet away, dragging his packed trunk behind him. He was moving with such speed and anger that sparks flew up between the trunk and the street.

"What the hell is he doing?" Dad said incredulously.

Mum got out of the car and jogged after Severus, shouting. "Severus Snape, come back here this instant! You're going to miss your train!"

"I'm not riding with you lot!" Severus bawled. "Petunia Evans, you're - you're as bad as my bloody father - abusive - controlling - you make me sick!" And with that he turned and broke into a run back toward Spinner's End, his trunk now scraping noisily along behind him.

Mum looked back at the three of us who were still sitting in the car, dumbfounded. She threw up her hands.

Dad cupped his hands around his mouth. "I don't know either, honey!" Shaking her head, Mum began walking back towards the car.

Petunia was laughing. "What the bloody hell was _that?_ I mean, Lily, really - when has that little git ever said my _name?"_

"You pushed him to it," I said furiously. "You _know _his family is messed up - you _know _he doesn't have any friends - and you said _that_ to him!"

"Lily, he's a freak!" Petunia laughed. There was a strange glint in her eyes: She was going to cry _now?_ "Just listen to him, he's always picking on people who aren't like him! _I'm _the one who's defending you!"

"Well, maybe I don't want you to! _He_ understands me! _You _don't! You don't understand anything about me, Tuney!"

_"GIRLS!" _Dad bellowed. "Both of you. Stop it. Right now, or we're not leaving this driveway!"

"Dad," I sobbed.

Mum sighed. "John, really." She turned around in her seat and gazed wearily at Petunia's and my tear-stained faces. "You both need to stop picking on each other. You're too old for this."

"I'm not picking on Lily," Petunia shot back. She hiccoughed.

_"I _am not picking on _Petunia." _

Now Petunia rounded on me, hissing. "You might as well be."

"Both of you," Mum broke in. Her voice was low and dangerous. "If both of you do not cease and desist right this minute, I will personally see to it that you regret it for the rest of your lives."

Petunia and I could both see that there was no way to win this, but the damage was done. Still seething, we both folded our arms across our chests and stared out of our respective windows as Dad put the car in reverse and backed up into the street. It didn't matter that ten minutes ago Severus Snape had been sitting in my seat; I couldn't remember a word he'd said. It was all eclipsed by the sound of that one hateful word: _Freak. _Nasal and shrill, like my sister's voice. The only person in the world who had a clue of what I experienced on a daily basis was a _freak. _Any reservations I'd had about Severus Snape before that moment now evaporated as the sound of that word pounded in my ears, and that was when I realized: As cruel as Severus's words had been, they were true. Petunia was jealous of me, and it didn't matter that I had no desire to rub my magical abilities in her face. It didn't matter that I cared enough about how Petunia felt to use my magic to make her gifts, or that I cared enough to listen to her cry, or that I cared enough to hide the very best of my magic from her. None of it mattered because Petunia would always hate me; and for that - right then, right there - I hated her back.

x.x.x.x.x.x

That night I lay awake in my flat, twirling my wand at the ceiling and watching the bluish-silver shape of the Phoenix Express dance over my head, periodically flicking my wand and switching the train from blue to scarlet, and then from scarlet back to blue. It was getting close to eleven o'clock, but even though my muscles ached from dueling, I was nowhere near falling asleep.

I wondered where Noah the Owl had flown off to. I twirled my wand again and watched the miniature Phoenix Express erupt into a halo of iridescent sparks. Had I locked him out? Was he hunting?

The sparks flew together and condensed into a single ball of light. With a gentle tap, I sent the sparks rippling over the dark ceiling like water, forming into the shape of a train once again.

Suddenly the lock clicked. Adrenaline surged into my chest, then pounded into my toes and fingertips. I extinguished the train and slipped behind the couch, pointing my wand at the door.

The lock clicked a second time and I wondered what the hell the intruder was doing. Then the door swung open and a tall, masculine figure stepped inside. He was wearing a hood and I couldn't see his face. He seemed confused - perhaps a little slow. Off-balance, even.

Little red spots began floating before my eyes, popping like bubbles. I felt a sudden flood of rage.

_Drunk Death Eater fucking broke my lock. _

Without any further rumination, I aimed my wand and fired.

_"Expelliarmus!"_

A jet of scarlet light exploded from the tip of my wand and hit the man squarely in the chest; with a strangled grunt he went flying backwards and crashed into my coat rack, knocking it over and landing rather pathetically on top of it. A split second later a slender mahogany wand flew into my outstretched hand.

The wand was still warm. He had been holding it, probably waiting to -

_Mahogany? _

I stared at the wand. It was vibrating with some kind of wounded energy, as though I had personally hurt it.

"James?" I asked in horror.

"Lily?" croaked a voice. It was definitely James.

I swore and threw myself over the couch, my socks skidding against the carpet as I stumbled to my feet. I went to him and knelt by the overturned coat rack, taking his face in my hands. "James, oh my God. Did I hurt you?"

He groaned. His cheeks were smeared with dirt and sweat. "Only my ego."

Suddenly I burst into tears. "I'm so sorry," I blubbered, clutching him. "I'm so sorry, I thought you were a Death Eater, I thought I was going to have to kill you or something, why were you wearing that hood, you had me so confused - "

"Shh, shh, it's okay," James said wearily. He moved to stroke my hair, but ended up patting it more than stroking it. "I totally get it, I didn't announce myself or anything. Whatever, Lily. It's fine."

"I'm so sorry, did I hurt you?"

"Yeah, you kicked me when I was already down," James joked. It wasn't funny. "Lily, can I take a shower?"

"Of course." Sniffling loudly, I helped him stand up. "Can I make you tea or something?"

"Uh. No thanks. I mean, thanks. I love you. But I'm okay. Thanks."

"Are you all right?" I whispered. His eyes seemed glassy, even in this dim light. The moon was nearly full, but it was barely visible behind a thick layer of clouds. James nodded, albeit somewhat unconvincingly.

"Are you sure?" I pressed.

He laughed weakly. "I'm alive. I promise."

"You're back early."

"We finished early."

"What happened?"

"Lily," James said, looking past me with his glassy, unseeing eyes, "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Oh."

"I'm going to stumble off to the shower now."

I nodded tearfully. "Okay. Yeah. I think that's a good idea."

James brushed past me and walked unsteadily toward the bathroom. Without so much as a glance back at me, he shut himself inside, locking the door behind him. Then, just barely over the drumming of the shower, I thought I heard him retch, followed by a long pause - and then, strangely, a couple of pounding noises. It sounded as though he was beating his fists against the floor.

I stood dumbly in the dark hallway for several minutes. A single sliver of moonlight was making its way up the wall, knife-like in its shape and brightness. James had never once behaved this way in all the years I'd known him, and had certainly never locked me out of the bathroom while he was showering. Clearly something terrible had happened, but he wasn't about to relinquish that information easily.

x.x.x.x.x.x

After what felt like an eternity, the shower stopped drumming. A moment later the bathroom door swung open and James walked out, a towel wrapped around his waist. His skin looked fresh, but his face was haggard.

"You were in there for so long, and you didn't even shave," I teased gently, pushing back the covers of my bed. I patted the spot next to me. "Sit with me."

Robotically, James sat down.

I cupped his cheek. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Are you sure?"

He slid under the covers and lay down, turning his back to me. "Stop asking."

"Sorry." I got under the covers with him and rested my chin against his shoulder. Silence. Then:

"We took a couple of Death Eaters to Azkaban."

I swallowed. "That's good news, right?"

"I was an idiot."

"Probably not as much as you think."

More silence.

"How can you stand to touch me?" James asked in a strangled voice.

I pulled the covers over us both and hugged him close. "Because I love you."

"Just promise you won't hate me."

"James," I said softly. "I could never hate you."

They started quietly, the little shuddering gasps, but then they grew deeper and more ragged; and as his whole body began to shake and convulse, I realized what was happening: James Potter wasn't just crying - he was flat-out sobbing, and more hysterically than I'd seen anyone sob, ever.

"Dear," I whispered, stroking his hair and his cheek. My fingers came away soaked with tears. "Oh, love. You have to tell me."

James shook his head and clutched my pillow, burying his face in it. I began to have an idea of what might have happened. I hardly dared to speak the words.

"Did you kill someone?"

At this his body tightened and shuddered even more, which I took to mean "yes" or something like it. Reaching in front of him, I grabbed the pillow and forced it away from his face, fearing he might suffocate himself.

"Worse," he gasped. "Civilians. My fault."

"Collateral damage?"

James shrugged and buried his face in my pillow again.

"That happens, James. You can't hate yourself for that."

"Lily - please. Save it. Just - save the preaching."

"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. I'll stop. Shh. It's okay. It's over. You're here now. We're here."

I'd meant those words to reassure, but they only set him off again, a fresh wave of sobs wracking his body. I realized then that this had been inevitable from the very first day that we'd joined the Order, that of course it was only a matter of time before we had to fight and kill; and as much as I wished he would calm down, I also realized that this hysteria, this heartbreak, this rage, this soft-skinned, red-eyed train wreck that was James was one of the fundamental reasons why I had chosen him. And so I let him be, clasping him tightly against me, letting him weep like a child for a childhood that was no more.

**x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x**

**Author's note: **Gaw, this chapter was painful. Less doom and gloom to come, I promise.

Reviews are awesome. Up there with a successfully sneaked nap, a fluffy duvet, and sex. Also dark chocolate? Grargleblah. 5AM.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and Happy New Year to all! :)


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